Don’t shoot for the moon.

Do you have any idea how far away the moon is? Or how expensive it will be to get there? Just thinking about the work required makes the task of getting there seem overwhelming and impossible. (Plus, “shooting” towards a natural satellite sounds like it has the potential to end pretty painfully.)

Instead of focusing intently on a major, long-term goal, devote your full attention to accomplishing a significant shorter-term goal.

What do you plan to achieve in the long-term? Do you want a twenty-location empire and a mansion on the beach? Write it out in detail on a piece of paper.

What part of that dream can you reasonably accomplish in the next three years? Maybe you can open your first location, or expand your existing business into a new area? Maybe you could also start renovating parts of your home to prepare it for sale? Write those things down on another piece of paper.

Now, you’re holding two pieces of paper, right? Tuck the major “short-term” goal page into your planner. (I don’t care what you do with your “long-term” goals written on it. Some recommend putting it in a visible place, where you can see it every day. I’d recommend keeping it at the back of a planner or journal and only looking at it when you need to reassess your short-term goals.)

Your short-term goals should only include tasks that are reasonable and attainable within the next 36 months.

Three years away seems like a lifetime (especially given the way some of us have had our perception of time thoroughly thrown off as of late), but it passes much quicker when you’re working in eager pursuit of something that matters deeply to you.

Create a timeline.

For each goal on your short-term page, list every step you’ll need to take to accomplish them. If you want to establish that empire, you’ll need to do some market research and scout locations. Then, you’ll need to negotiate a lease. Then, you’ll need to get started on the build. If you want to get that house ready to sell, you’ll need to deal with that green shag carpeting in your living room…for starters.

Now, estimate how much time each of those tasks will take. For example, how long will you take to scout locations and decide on a home for your new business? How many months will it take to get the rose tile replaced with something a little more modern in your dated ass bathroom? Be reasonable in your assessments, especially if you’re relying on third parties (like accountants, attorneys, state licensing departments, or contractors) for anything.

Keep your personal responsibilities in mind, too.

Think hard about how many hours per day you can realistically dedicate to your tasks. You may find that you have to make some sacrifices or delegate certain tasks to free up more time.

For me, that task was managing my social campaigns for this blog. By automating those tasks through the use of a social calendar software, I was able to free up five hours per week. I also sacrificed non-essential social interaction, for the most part.

You’ll also need to recognize and eliminate time-sucking distractions. For example, I had to severely limit my involvement in professional networking groups to an hour or less per day. In April of 2018, I left Facebook entirely. When I finished my taxes in January of this year, I found that my income had doubled. (I am positive that was not a coincidence.)

Now, you should have a rough outline of what your next 36 months will look like. Transfer all those dates and tasks to your calendar. Once you’re done, they won’t be goals any more; they’ll be plans.

Focus and Execute

Plan to make slow and steady progress. Don’t allow yourself to get distracted by other projects or opportunities. For many of you, this will mean learning how to say “no” more often. Anything that distracts from your goals, regardless of what it is, will push back your timeline.

Most of us are visual people, so maybe it’ll help you to think of these distractions this way:

You’re at the bottom of the ocean and you really want to get to the surface, take a deep breath of fresh air, and see the sun. So, you make a plan to get to the surface and you start executing that plan.

You start to swim upwards but an octopus stops you. He says, “Hey, can you help me with this thing? It’s a great opportunity for you and will only require a few days/weeks of your time.”

The octopus straps a weight to your ankle that’ll keep you at his depth until the task is done. Meanwhile, you can’t really do a lot of swimming, so your goal of reaching the surface is postponed.

You finish the octopus’s assignment, remove the weight, and start swimming again. You’ve made it another twenty feet closer to the surface when a dolphin approaches you. “Hello!” he says. “I have a great opportunity for you. It will only require a few days/weeks of your time…” He holds out another weight for you to strap to your ankle.

Always ask, “What’s in this for me?”

You’re allowed to be selfish, shrewd, and cynical. You’re allowed to expect a tangible return on your time and effort, especially when you’re being asked to put your goals on hold by someone else who’d rather you spend your time in pursuit of theirs. Many “opportunities” I’m presented with aren’t actually opportunities that would ever benefit me—at least not enough to make up for the loss of time I could have spent on my own goals. Be willing to say no to anything that doesn’t move you closer to your destination. Remember, you’re on a schedule.

Outside projects, in addition to robbing you of your valuable time, will tire you out. The longer you postpone your own goals, the easier it gets to postpone them further. Go long enough without working on your goals and they’ll eventually start to look like unattainable pipe dreams. You’ll get frustrated and resentful and will may never resume your work towards that goal again.

The only thing worse for your progress than the interference of others is your inability to commit to a singular focus.

Sometimes, we’re the ones strapping weights to our own ankles. We can set ourselves back when we start twenty different projects and never actually complete anything.

A few of my consulting clients are like this: eager, driven, motivated, but ultimately they’re too impulsive. They haven’t opened their first location before they’re asking to tour empty units in neighboring towns as part of a sudden expansion plan that materialized on a whim.

In this scenario, you’re swimming to the top, but you can only really use one arm (most of the time), because your other arm and your legs are preoccupied managing your other projects. Try not to think too hard about how that would work from a logistical standpoint—it’s a mediocre analogy, the point is…

Successful, productive people commit and follow through.

Don’t sabotage yourself by spreading yourself too thin or set yourself up for disappointment by taking on far too much. Your timeline serves as a guide but also a reminder that big goals sometimes require big time investments. You might get there sooner, but if not, you shouldn’t feel discouraged. Keep checking off tasks one day at a time. As long as you’re moving forward, it doesn’t matter how fast (or slow) you’re going.

Self-Assess

The lists, calendars, and detailed plans go a long way to curb those impulsive behaviors, but daily self-assessment is an absolute necessity.

When you start your day, do the following:

Check your calendar. Ask yourself:

• Am I on track to hit my deadlines?
• What do I need to be focusing on today to ensure that I will stay on schedule?

Check your to-do list. Ask yourself:

• What can I fully complete today?
• What extraneous tasks can I outsource or postpone?

Hold yourself accountable. If you can’t, have someone else hold you accountable.

Once you accomplish one of your short-term goals, revisit your long-term goal. Ask yourself:

• Do I still want this, or have I found a new long-term goal?
• Have new opportunities presented themselves that could get me closer to achieving this goal or help me progress more efficiently?
• Can I add a new short-term goal now or should I buckle down and clear the ones I’m working on first?

I hope you found this approach helpful. Personally, I had a hard time following most popular goal-setting techniques. This strategy works for me, but I encourage you to also be flexible. When something isn’t working, try something new until you find something that works, and don’t get too discouraged when you experience delays or setbacks.

We can’t tell the future, but we should all be planning for a variety of potential outcomes, the most threatening of which is extended economic strife.

Thus far, the government has been wrong about basically everything. Expect them to also be wrong about how long we need to distance ourselves from others and how long our businesses will need to be closed for. I consider their “15-day” estimations to be absurdly optimistic (and so do a lot of people far more qualified than me), given that defiant, ignorant people exist in disproportionate numbers here. Our government doesn’t have the authority or the capacity to enforce national quarantines nor have they yet approved a plan to pay anxious Americans enough to stay home.

What worked in China likely will not work here, so it wouldn’t hurt for you to assume that COVID-19 and the economic consequences of the pandemic will persist for much longer than projected.

Plan for the worst.

I good at my job because I’m pragmatic. I consider unexpected outcomes and unintended consequences a lot of other people miss. I’m able to foresee certain conclusions because I am always asking myself a series of questions, like, “Which behaviors does this policy/practice reward and which does it discourage?” and “If this compensation system were a game, how would I break it?”

Right now, the most important question every one of you should be asking is this:

Three months from now, which steps will you regret not taking?

Base your answers on the worst possible circumstances. I’ll help you identify those, in case you haven’t yet:

• The virus continues to be a problem for the next year (at least), with salons ordered to close for weeks at a time as COVID-19 continues to infect the populace in waves.
• The moratorium on bills that people are now calling for never passes.
• The government provides relief, but it’s too little too late, and you aren’t eligible for it anyway.
• The economy is thrown into a depression that makes the 2008 recession look like a cakewalk.

Those are your worst possible circumstances at this very moment. If all four of these things remain true, what will you regret not doing right now?

Don’t be caught with your ass in the air. Get ahead now. Every day counts.

I’m a human person. What do I do?

Stop circulating in the public. If you must, start contact tracing. Write down the names of every person you come into contact with each day and where you were in contact with them.

If you think contact tracing is too much work, you are circulating too much.

These records are invaluable to healthcare workers and the CDC when someone gets sick because they can be used to quickly track down the person who infected you and notify everyone you’ve been in contact with since.

I’m a business owner. What do I do?

Close your salon, even if your local authority hasn’t ordered it. A responsible government would have taken a cautious approach from the beginning. We haven’t. Instead, we wasted critical weeks and continue even now to put people at risk by allowing too many of them to mingle freely while a novel virus we understand less than dick about spreads like wildfire.

Because we work so closely with the public, we present a massive public health threat right now. Stop being part of the problem. Close up shop until tests and masks are freely available, the danger of overwhelming our hospitals has passed, and contact tracing becomes the rule for everyone.

Those who are unwilling to make sacrifices now will continue to exacerbate the problem, causing it to continue indefinitely.

The fastest way for us to get back to work is to shut everything down until we’ve identified and isolated the ill.

When it comes to finances, start researching the relief programs that may be available to you. This tool made by Forbes can help.

Do not—I repeat—DO NOT apply for ANY loans or lines of credit out of desperation. Harsh truth time: Even if you manage to obtain a massive loan (which is unlikely AF now that lenders are getting nervous), your salon could still drown in the multi-year economic wake of coronavirus, leaving you destitute.

You should only accept debt when you’re confident it’ll result in growth, enabling you to pay it off, otherwise you’re performing a blood transfusion on a dead man.

Never forget that unjustified optimism brought us to where we are today. “One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” Remember that? Feels like a lifetime ago, right? Don’t make the same mistakes our government officials made when you hear them trying to convince you that the economy will “bounce back.” The best a realistic optimist can tell you right now is, “Nobody knows.” Anyone telling you anything else about how COVID-19 will affect the economy is putting your livelihood at risk.

As a consultant, I can’t in good conscience advise salon owners to gamble their future on a recovery that likely won’t come in time for their businesses. If you have to cut your losses, cut them quickly and seek reemployment. Retreat now and live to fight another day.

Are there any alternatives to closing up shop? Totally, but it will require revolutionary thinking and ideal pre-COVID financial circumstances. Owners who were once competitors will need to join forces, partner up, pool resources, and work together. If you’re determined to fight to the death, start reaching out to like-minded salon owners and professionals to form strategic alliances now because the saying, “There are more than enough clients for everyone,” won’t be true when we all finally emerge from our homes.

I’m an employee. What do I do?

If you were laid off (or are sitting at home uncompensated), try to take advantage of state resources like unemployment. Instead of watching the news all day, think of ways you can work and generate an income outside of the industry. If you have an opportunity to pursue any of those options, I would advise you to take them. Now.

Do not “take one for the team” and work in the salon for free unless you genuinely want to and can afford to volunteer.

If your employer has earned some goodwill from you, try to extend some grace to them. This is uncharted territory for all of us.

I’m an employer. What do I do?

Whatever you can. Hopefully, you took my advice and stockpiled a bunch of cash in an emergency fund and have enough to compensate your professionals for a few weeks (at the very least). If you can’t, you owe it to them to communicate that immediately and give them the opportunity to find other work and/or seek employment elsewhere.

You should also research the relief programs that may be available to you. This tool made by Forbes can help.

How will this impact the industry long-term? Should I find another career?

Let me preface this with the following: I hope like hell that I’m wrong.

As much as I’d like to lift your spirits during this crisis, I can’t.

The fact of the matter is that we—as a nation—very likely are not organized, disciplined, or selfless enough to “flatten the curve,” “slow the spread,” or “eradicate” COVID-19. We’re already seeing our efforts fall apart nearly every step of the way so far. Unless something miraculous happens, our businesses and our incomes will be in jeopardy for a long while and our clients will be hesitant to return even after their income starts to recover.

The last recession, I clung to this industry like a drowning woman clings to a life raft, hoping that if I just waited everything out, things would get better. I told myself that I had invested so much already, it would be foolish to quit. I said, “Everyone needs haircuts! We’re recession-proof! Any day now, we’ll be back to normal. If I leave the industry, I’ll be betraying myself because I love this job.”

Please, don’t do what I did.

If I had to do it all over again (and it looks like that might be the case), I’d have found a position in any industry that could compensate me steadily so I could routinely pay my bills. Instead, I worked part-time at two salons (three, during off-season), averaging 90 hours per week and going anywhere from one month to six weeks without a single day off, yet no amount of hard work could close the gap between my pre-recession expenses and my post-recession income. I gave up my house and sold what I could. I lived for years without cable, internet, or a cell phone, cutting coupons and relying on sales to put food on the table.

I realized too late how nonessential our services are.
I didn’t have a backup plan.
I leaned in when I should have been dipping the fuck out…at least temporarily.

Back then, I rarely had more than $400 in my bank account. Sure, I survived, but it was stressful and I cried a lot. I was fortunate to have a job at all, let alone three. My managerial qualifications were likely the only reason I didn’t end up indefinitely unemployed like so many of my colleagues.

If you’re barely scraping by right now or are new to the industry and haven’t built your following, it’s okay to cut ties with for now, especially if you aren’t properly classified or legally compensated. In fact, if either or both are the case, I would urge you to start researching new jobs ASAP. Don’t waste time waiting and hoping, like I did. Weeks quickly stretch into months, and months into years. The longer you wait, the easier it is to justify waiting even more. (Our brains are real bastards.)

Not a single one of us owes our loyalty to this industry. There’s nothing noble or honorable about going down with the ship during a global crisis. Do what is best for you and your family. Pay your bills. Feed your kids. Come back when you can afford to. A lot of salons will be forced to close, but our services will always be needed in our communities.

As for the future, I expect, at the very least, we’ll be repeating the past. Because the 2008 financial crisis traumatized me for life, it’s still very fresh in my mind.

Here’s what happened:

• Clients were laid off and quit coming to salons.
• Salon owners slashed prices, engaging in price wars with local competitors that continued to drive down prices.
• DIY products and video tutorials proliferated the market.
• Professionals whose commissions constituted a large part of their wages quit to find employment elsewhere.
• A large chunk of salon owners couldn’t cut costs or increase productivity to the levels necessary to compete with other salons or retail alternatives and were forced to close.
• Beauty schools saw critical declines in enrollment levels, which caused many to cut programs or to close entirely.
• Finding qualified employees became exceptionally difficult as people fled the industry and schools became less accessible. Salon owners also couldn’t afford to compensate professionals competitively at the absurdly low price points cash-strapped consumers demanded, making a difficult situation outright impossible.
• The industry’s plague of labor abuses became even more commonplace, fragmenting our industry into a legion of microsalon owners who would rather work for themselves than be exploited, crushing the already ailing employment-based salon model. The increase in these abuses provoked me to start blogging about them in 2010.
• Lacking the distribution provided by employment-based salons, salon-exclusive brands turned to retail outlets to move product. As we were already beginning to see our clients choose to buy from online retailers, this punch proved to be the final blow for many salon owners who relied on those retail sales to subsidize the salon.
• Legislators pushed to deregulate our industry. (But that’s nothing new.)
• A bunch of salon owners and professionals remained in denial about their economic reality for far too long, wasting valuable time “doing business as usual” when they should have been rapidly evolving in an effort to compete or dropping out entirely.

Nobody can say for sure how things will shake out, but I’m operating on the assumption that we’re facing a big hit that will impact us for a long while.

What I’m Doing

It became clear to me that COVID-19 was going to be a serious problem the first week of March. My family has been inside since. I never thought I’d be glad to be born and raised in the armpit that is the state of Florida but growing up in a place where state-wide emergencies are routine prepared me for this well (as did being nearly bankrupted during the recession). We have a bidet and cloth diapers, so my family of seven won’t exacerbate the inevitable toilet paper and diaper shortages. We’ve started a large vegetable garden to help curb our grocery needs. Thankfully, I eliminated my debts and saved aggressively over the last decade, so I can afford to expand my skill set by earning a nanodegree in full stack development online—just in case I have to change careers. I started the course a few days after we voluntarily quarantined ourselves. Both the immediate and long-term future are virtual so that’s where I’m focusing my attention.

I encourage you to also start thinking about your future and coming up with contingency plans, at the very least.

Honestly, over the last month, I’ve been a mess. I’ve been overwhelmed by the horror stories from professionals and owners that I’ve formed relationships with over the last decade. A lot of my consulting clients have only just recovered from the last recession and were finally building wealth. Nearly all are women with children to support. The thought of them losing everything they worked so hard for feels like a punch to the chest.

They busted their asses. They poured everything into their dreams. They deserved much better.

You all deserve better. That’s why I won’t lie and tell you it’ll all work itself out. That attitude ruined a lot of people for a lot longer than it should have fifteen years ago. If you currently know or suspect, based on your current financial situation, that you or your salon won’t make it—get out early.
Please.

WHAT DID YOU SAY?! Why aren’t you telling people not to panic?!

Because you should panic. While the media focuses largely on medical supply shortages and dehumanizes and diminishes the victims by constantly referring to “the numbers” (because god forbid we call them “people”), thousands of workers are losing their jobs, to the point that the White House is asking states not to release their unemployment statistics for fear of causing more market chaos. Businesses are already shuttering with no plans to reopen. Every day we go without aid to the people, their debts (and ours) accumulate. Meanwhile, the only option for business owners is to take out loans—if they can find and qualify for them.

If you’re holding out hope that the government will sort it all for us with bold, decisive action—stop. Thus far, they’ve done nothing to earn that trust from you.

What they have done a whole lot of is lying. That’s not even just my opinion. That’s a verifiable fact. Now, the same people who told you COVID-19 was a hoax are in charge of “saving” the economy. Call me cynical, but I wouldn’t be so quick to put my confidence in a positive outcome.

Panic, but channel that energy into something meaningful and productive.

I am where I am professionally because I tell the truth, regardless of how unpopular it could make me. I’m trusted because I genuinely care about the welfare of the people who work in this industry and want nothing more than to see us all thrive. I take my responsibility to all of you very seriously, which is why I’m here forcing everyone to acknowledge what no one wants to admit. I can’t advise anyone to sacrifice themselves on the altar of industry loyalty.

The facts are clear: the vast majority of beauty workers and salon owners will not survive this economic downturn.

I don’t want to hear a bunch of bitching in the comments. Don’t tell me it’s “too early.” I brought receipts. And don’t you dare tell me I’m being “negative.” This system has broken in ways we, as an industry, cannot fix. We have no control over any of this. Now is not the time to “stay positive.” Now is not the time to “wait and see.”

Now is the time to set our emotions aside, get proactive, and take our own bold, decisive actions to save ourselves and our families. We can mourn every single one of our countless losses later.

When I sat down to write this article, I wanted to be positive. I really did. The idea of publishing it has kept me up at night and I’m not sure how long it’ll be before I can stomach sharing it on the site’s social media accounts. The last thing I wanted was to kick at you while you’re down. I’m sorry, but where our industry is concerned, there’s little to be positive about.

Things don’t just look bleak, they look downright abysmal, and when your savings is dwindling and the bills are piling up with no resolution in sight, you don’t have the time to waste praying for a miracle. Brace yourselves.

No amount of motivational platitudes or positive thinking will alter the fabric of our new economic reality.

We’re facing an unprecedented stop in economic activity. If you’re a “ride or die” professional, great. Only you know what’s best for you, but keep your sunshiny, sugar-coated bullshit to yourself. While you try to will the economy into submission with the sheer force of your happy thoughts the rest of us will be facing a broken, traumatized populace that won’t be able to afford the luxury of our services for a long time and probably won’t be comfortable being in such close proximity to others when they finally can. If you aren’t taking this seriously by now, you aren’t paying attention.

I care about this industry but I care about people more. Many of you will have to make tough, agonizing decisions. A lot of you will have to leave. If you do, don’t worry—the industry isn’t going anywhere. It will be here when you get back.

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[VIP 6] How to Become an Exceptional Mentor

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Why develop a mentorship program?

Professionals in the beauty industry often feel unsupported by their employers. These feelings, in addition to contributing to overall attrition rates, cause those who choose to stay to bounce from salon to salon, frequently ending up in rental facilities. While a salon mentorship program alone won’t solve all of your employee turnover problems, it can curb employee departures significantly and transform your salon into a highly desired place of employment, giving you a significant advantage.

Mentorship pays in considerable karmic benefits, but it can also lead to profitable opportunities and even new career paths. I’m proof of how that can happen.

I started this blog in 2010 to help others. Back then, it was really nothing more than a collection of articles on a third-party platform, but it gained traction fast. People began seeking me out for individualized help, which I happily provided.

I moved off that third-party platform and the popularity of my site exploded. Soon, people were asking me to write a book and speak at trade shows in their area. Professionals I looked up to started to notice me and began referring their followers to me.

From there, my career progressed evolved dramatically. Now, I’ve published two books and hundreds of articles (both here and in national trade publications), spoken at trade shows, consulted for hundreds of salon owners and professionals within and outside of the United States, and have created business tools, online classes, and a membership system. While the money has been spectacular, it isn’t everything.

the biggest benefit to my career came in the form of the motivation my supporters have provided by just being present.

I’ve taken my own company, Unvarnished Hand & Foot Co., further than I ever would have had the guts to without them. Five years ago, if you told me I’d grow my salon into two locations, I’d have laughed you right out of the building. If you had told me I’d be planning a multi-state expansion in 2019, I probably would have thrown something at you for wishing that evil on me.

And yet, here I am, laying the foundation for something completely insane that I would never have considered without this site that started as a collection of articles on a third-party platform. Why? Because some lessons are best learned through direct experience. For me to grow as a consultant, I have to do scary things, take on risky challenges, and turn my mistakes into lessons and my discoveries into strategies.

Where will mentoring others take you and your business? Before you can find out, let’s talk about how you can gradually evolve into an authority others consider trustworthy and credible. These lessons are important for every person in a leadership position, even those who aren’t salon owners and managers.

Exceptional mentors learn and educate constantly.

Start seeing yourself as an educator and talent developer. Whether through your blog, social media, YouTube, and/or in person–you should always be teaching. However, to facilitate this constant teaching, you have to commit to constant learning, which doesn’t have to be as painful as it seems.

• Subscribe to blogs and vlogs that interest you,
• Join professional associations and be sure to opt in to their email lists,
• Follow people who inspire you on social media.

Developing this habit will help you develop experience faster, while expanding your own knowledge.

Exceptional mentors aren’t shovel sellers.

During the gold rush, Mark Twain remarked that the only people making money were the shovel sellers—people who had no actual gold mining experience, but were pitching the dream of “striking it rich” to fools who were happy to buy their shovels, picks, pans, and sifters.

Exceptional mentors largely draw from their own life lessons.

While you’re out living your life, experiment and learn from your experiences—otherwise you run the risk of becoming one of many shovel sellers in the industry. If all you do is appropriate and repackage the knowledge and experiences of others as if it were your own, you will never be more than a mediocre fraud, and it won’t be long before you’re caught and exposed the way so many others have been.

Exceptional mentors have the courage to be relatable.

I’m in the process of turning a ton of my old journal entries into a short e-book, titled “Mature For Her Age.” It is a collection of my most significant professional embarrassments—a laundry list of fuckups I was personally responsible for and what I learned from each experience. I’ve always considered it important for others to understand that nobody begins their career in this industry as the poster child for salon professionalism.

I fumbled my way through this business the first five years of my career and was only slightly less of train wreck the following ten.

Even with the benefit of a spectacular mentor and a superior education, I made huge mistakes and really poor judgement calls—and so did you. Meet others on equal ground. You’re allowed to be flawed. Your broken parts make your transformation into who you are today so much more compelling and powerful.

Once upon a time, you were an idiot, just like the rest of us, and that’s inspiring AF.

Exceptional mentors acknowledge skill, education, and experience deficits when necessary.

Successful mentors know their limits. Remember not to be a shovel seller. Don’t provide advice you can’t back up with experience or personal knowledge. Cite your sources when sharing information you gained from someone else (that way they can be responsible if that information turns out not to be accurate or helpful).

You don’t have to know it all.

Exceptional mentors are aware of (and admit) their biases.

I don’t know about you, but there are some things about this business I don’t like or agree with. For instance, I’m one of very few people in my position who present microsalon business ownership fairly and realistically, instead of promoting only the positives. I could probably make a lot more money if I lied through my teeth the way so many others do, painting self-employment as a glorious, fulfilling, and tremendously profitable career path. I could sell the illusion of “guaranteed success” and make millions from those desperate to buy that dream.

Instead, I promote truth. Solo entrepreneurship is hard, risky, and requires a lot more than most people realize (and much more than a good deal of people are willing to sacrifice). It isn’t for everyone and it’s terrible for the industry at large.

Am I biased against microsalon ownership? To a degree, absolutely, and I’m not shy about it. Aspiring microsalon owners looking for someone to tell them what they want to hear and to “motivate” them to make an impulsive, uninformed, expensive mistake should not be contacting me, because they won’t get what they’re looking for. I only endorse a microsalon venture when the professional in question has demonstrated competence, presented a solid plan, and clearly understands what solo entrepreneurship entails.

It’s okay to have strong opinions, so long as those opinions are informed.

Be forthcoming about your own biases as well. Not only does this help to reinforce your credibility, it shows integrity, and will help to keep incompatible mentees from wasting your time.

Exceptional mentors are active listening experts.

Make a conscious effort to hear and comprehend what others are saying. When you respond, paraphrase some of the information you just received. Not only will paraphrasing help you retain the information, but it will show the other person that you actually heard them.

Learn how to ask the right open-ended questions and how to manage the discussion to maximize the value of the interaction. This requires you to know how to keep a mentee on-topic. If you’re allowing the conversation to meander to trivial topics and irrelevant subjects, your time will be wasted and your mentee will question your competence (or at least feel they didn’t get anything useful from the discussion).

Exceptional mentors individualize their programs.

For your efforts to be successful, you have to get to know your mentee(s) on a personal level. The time you spend setting goals and developing strategies for attaining those goals will be wasted if the program doesn’t suit the mentees lifestyle or personality, or cater to how they learn best.

Develop your emotional intelligence.

Emotionally intelligent people understand the needs and feelings of others and know how to respond appropriately. Social awareness will be critical when communicating with pretty much anyone in any environment, but it will be especially important when working with someone on their professional development. They’re going to experience failures, setbacks, and challenges that might test their resolve. To keep your mentee motivated and provide them with sound advice, you’ll need to know them pretty well personally. Having an understanding of their mindset and any frustrations they face in their personal lives will help you determine which approach will be most effective in any given situation.

Exceptional mentors communicate their availability, repeatedly.

If you’re willing to donate your time to others, reach out. Some people have a hard time asking for help, so give them a direct invitation or three. While you shouldn’t force your help on anyone, you might need to be a little more insistent so they understand that they would not be imposing and that you genuinely do want them to take advantage of the offer.

(Have I mentioned The Community—a discussion forum where you guys can seek help and get it for free whenever you need it?)

Exceptional mentors take responsibility for their advice.

Although nobody can guarantee outcomes, you don’t get to advise others and walk away when your recommendations have negative consequences. While you aren’t responsible for the mistakes others make when implementing your advice or the behaviors and choices of third parties who may be negatively affected by your advice, you are responsible for supporting the person you’re mentoring. Help them untangle whatever messes have been made and be available to them when they need someone to talk to.

Now you know what it takes to be an exceptional mentor. Next month, you’ll learn how to implement that advice and build a comprehensive professional development system.

Until then, what systems do you have in place now? How are they working out? Do your employees and/or mentees value the assistance they’re receiving? Do you lack a system entirely, and if so, do you feel that introducing one might lead to more engaged employees and lower turnover rates?

Although our industry and technology has evolved exponentially, our system for educating and licensing professionals hasn’t changed in decades—and it really needs to.

In Part 1, The Industry’s Education Situation, we briefly acknowledged the uncomfortable fact that abuse of students and financial aid programs puts our entire profession in peril by legitimizing arguments for deregulation.

In Part 2, The Industry’s Education Solution, we discussed how we could draw a clear line between what constitutes practical and necessary practices that should be part of a professional’s education and labor exploitation.

In this final installment, we’ll evaluate the primary reasons lawmakers and activists believe our education and licenses aren’t necessary and discuss a potential compromise that will not only eliminate their arguments but revitalize our industry, curb attrition, and make both education and licensure more affordable and attainable for all.

But first, you might want to take some deep, calming breaths…

Read the full article here.

Continuing from our discussion in The Industry’s Education Situation, let’s address the issues schools face and how we can mitigate or eliminate those issues altogether.

Read the full article here.

Recently, students have been suing their technical schools, arguing that their time spent performing clinic work and other chores should be considered compensable time. 

In Part 1 of this series, I’ll walk you through both of the cases and the decisions made. Then, in Part 2, we’ll define the line between valuable technical practice and compensable work and what we can do to keep schools from unintentionally crossing that line. In Part 3, we’re going to shake the whole system up with proposals for alternative education methods that could potentially end the push for deregulation forever.

Read the full article here.

Continuing from our discussion in The Industry’s Education Situation, let’s address the issues schools face and how we can mitigate or eliminate those issues altogether.

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Issue 1: Defining Practical Clinical Experience and Compensable Labor

Schools lose in court when they aren’t able to sufficiently prove that the tasks they’re having students perform are a necessary part of the education. If they can prove the students were only performing tasks required by the state board, they will prevail—the way the massage school did. (Supervision or no, the students were performing legally required clinic hours while an instructor was on the premises.)

Salon chores—clearing hair clogs out of shampoo sinks, mopping floors, and scrubbing toilets—are not part of any state board’s practical education requirements.

With that considered, we can easily draw a line between what constitutes practical and necessary parts of practice that should be included in a professional’s clinical education and what can only be described as compensable labor.

Reasonable: Expecting students to sweep hair after a cut.
Unreasonable: Expecting students to mop the floor.

Reasonable: Expecting students to disinfect their tools.
Unreasonable: Expecting students to scrub the toilets.

Reasonable: Expecting students to clean the shampoo bowl after rinsing out chemicals.
Unreasonable: Expecting students to disassemble the piping to remove hair clogs. (Which I have done as a student.)

Reasonable: Expecting students to keep their station drawers free of dirt and debris as required by state board regulations.
Unreasonable: Expecting students to count, dust, front, and stock retail inventory.

There’s a difference between sweeping the area around your station immediately after a service to keep a client from slipping (in compliance with regulations) versus scrubbing the school’s toilets. One is part of the service that state boards require of practicing professionals; the other is janitorial work that has absolutely nothing to do with the service. Schools can justify teaching and requiring state board compliance; they cannot use the students as unpaid janitors.

Issue 2: Clarifying the Scope of a Technical Program

As an industry, we need to agree on the role of our learning institutions. We’re placing some really unrealistic expectations on trade schools when we say things like, “Schools have to prepare you for the salon.”

Schools are responsible for ensuring their graduates can safely and competently perform the services their license authorizes them to perform.

Anything outside of technical education falls outside of the scope of a technical school and constitutes a waste of valuable instructive time. Schools aren’t responsible for producing professionals who know how to work reception, take inventory, and clean our salons. After all, they’re not licensing them to be receptionists, retail workers, or our cleaning crew. Students are being licensed as salon professionals and will be seeking employment as service providers. As salon owners and managers, we are responsible for communicating our expectations and training our employees. We are responsible for developing our talent.

To expect trade school educators to do our jobs for us is absolutely ludicrous.

Issue 3: Establishing Prohibitions and Enforcement Standards

I sincerely believe school owners (including those at Douglas J) had no malice in requiring their students to do menial salon work. Most facilities operate their clinic floor like a functional salon in every way. This seems very much like another instance of “monkey see; monkey do.” Every time one of these cases makes headlines, about half of the professionals involved in the discussion comment that their schools required them to do the same.

Our state boards will need to specifically prohibit schools from requiring students to perform menial chores during instructive time and assign penalties to those who do.

Many state boards have defined the scope of a cosmetology education so it shouldn’t require much time or effort to enact a common-sense prohibition against unrelated labor, but it will require professionals to organize and collaborate, to help their state board members determine a suitable course of action.

Nothing happens without your involvement.

In Part 3: The Industry’s Education Reconfiguration, we’ll talk about alternatives to the current education methods and how those alternatives might help eliminate the deregulation arguments entirely. For now, what do you think? Do you have any ideas or strategies for improving our schools?

Recently, students have been suing their technical schools, arguing that their time spent performing clinic work and other chores should be considered compensable time. In October, Detroit students fighting the Douglas J Aveda Institute won when U.S. District Court Judge Judith Levy ruled that they were considered employees under federal law. However, massage students fighting Steiner Education Group recently lost, with the 10^th Circuit Court of Appeals determining that the students were not entitled to wages for their time spent in training.

In Part 1 of this article, I’ll walk you through both of the cases and the decisions made. Then, in Part 2, we’ll define the line between valuable technical practice and compensable work and what we can do to keep schools from unintentionally crossing that line. In Part 3, we’re going to shake the whole system up with proposals for alternative education methods that could potentially end the push for deregulation forever.

If you own a school or attend one, don’t skip this.

The Douglas J Aveda Institute Case

What we know:

• Students testified that they were required to perform menial tasks during instructive hours, such as cleaning floors, restocking products, and doing laundry.
• Lawyers for Douglas J argued that manual labor was “part of the education.”
• Judge Judith Levy disagreed, stating, “These tasks are beyond the pale of the contemplated cosmetology education and training the plaintiffs sought,” and determined the students could be considered employees under federal law, which means they are entitled to be compensated.
• This ruling paves the way for class action, which could affect as many as 5,000 or 6,000 students at all seven of the Douglas J locations.

Unfortunately, without an official written decision, not much more information can be found regarding the specifics of the Douglas J Aveda Institute case, but from the information provided in the various news articles, we can see that the defendant’s argument that the manual labor was “part of the education” didn’t hold enough merit to convince Judge Levy.

Co-owner of Douglas J, Scott Weaver, holds a position on the Michigan State Board of Cosmetology, which does not test students on their ability to clean floors, stock retail and backbar, or do laundry. To pass inspections, schools are required to operate their facilities in accordance with board guidelines (school must be “clean, sanitary, and safe” at all times), but these guidelines do not specifically empower school owners to utilize paying students for janitorial work.

The Steiner Education Group Case

What we know:

• Steiner, like most technical beauty/massage schools, required students to perform services for paying customers as part of their clinical curriculum. These students were not compensated for performing clinic services.
• However, students allege that unlike most technical beauty/massage schools, Steiner educators did not instruct, monitor, supervise, or train the students whatsoever during clinic massages. Therefore, the plaintiff alleged that Steiner was using students as unpaid employees in a factory setting instead of providing any education in a clinical learning environment.
• Steiner disputed that the students received no instruction or feedback from educators and customers.

The Steiner case differs from the Douglas J case significantly. In the Douglas J case, students were made to perform trivial janitorial tasks without compensation. In the Steiner case, students argued that they were not given supervision and instruction during clinic hours and were therefore employees; not students.

In making this determination, the court decided to use six factors adopted from Reich v Parker Fire Protection Dist. to evaluate the economic realities of the parties’ relationship. They concluded:

1. The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to that which would be given in a vocational school;
2. The training is for the benefit of the trainee;
3. The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under close observation;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees and on occasions his operations may actually be impeded;
5. The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the completion of the training period;
6. The employer and trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.

Steiner prevailed on all six factors, despite the fact that Colorado state law requires that clinical work be conducted under “immediate supervision.” More than half a dozen students who Steiner deposed from various schools around the country stated there was never any instruction, monitoring, observation, supervision, or training during clinic massages. Of the hundreds of pages of advertisements Steiner released, ninety percent of them did not inform the public that massages would be performed by students.

The plaintiff filed for an appeal, arguing that the court erred in applying Reich, but lost.  (You can learn more about why the court upheld its initial decision here.)

If the same test were applied to Douglas J, they likely would have passed on factors 1, 5, and 6, but probably would not have prevailed on any of the others.

The Debate

This issue polarizes beauty professionals and inspires some really strong emotional responses, with older professionals accusing younger professionals of being “lazy” and “entitled” and veteran professionals demanding that new entrants “pay their dues” the way they had to. In this section, we’ll address some of the most common statements and expectations.

“What a bunch of entitled, spoiled brats! Folding towels and scrubbing floors are a part of salon life that all professionals are expected to do!”

More than any other comment, a variation of this one pops up most frequently in this debate, so let’s get this out of the way immediately.

Students who are paying $15,000+ for an education but are instead spending their time doing menial work are not “spoiled” or “entitled.”

The “entitled” parties are those being paid thousands for tuition and thousands more for the services their students perform and who, despite receiving every cent of that money, still expect free janitorial work from their students.

Menial work will absolutely be expected of you in the salon, but you will be getting compensated to perform those tasks. You don’t need to pay tens of thousands of dollars to learn how to do them.

“It’s just a few hours a day. It’s not a big deal.”

Let’s say you’re paying $20,000 tuition and going to school in a state like Florida that requires 1,200 hours. You spent a total of just 40 hours this month doing reception, laundry, retail, and other chores that have exactly nothing to do with what you’re going to school for. In addition to not being paid, you’re paying the school $667 to do chores employers are legally required to compensate employees and interns to perform.

Still think it’s not a big deal?

We’re only considering the cost of 40 hours, which isn’t realistic at all. Many students are spending far more than 40 hours of their educational hours doing menial chores and other job duties that don’t contribute to their education.

“Schools should be preparing their students for salon life, so they should be doing the same chores we do.”

Schools are not responsible for teaching adult students how to operate washing machines, fold towels, answer phones, dust shelves, scrub toilets, or mop floors. When you promote this argument, you end up with salon owners who complain that because a student doesn’t come out of school as a perfectly trained employee of their salon (knowing how to handle the salon’s booking, inventory, or cleaning), that the schools aren’t competently training the students—a unfair criticism based on unrealistic expectations of the institution.

If schools are expected to bear the burden for getting beauty students prepared for “salon life,” are they also expected to prepare them for freelancing, business ownership, sales work, educating, platform artistry, online influencing, and all the other ways a professional may choose to work?

Many employers in our industry (and I’m guilty of this myself) are often aggravated by applicants who aren’t technically proficient right out of school. Professionals also complain about how they didn’t feel prepared coming out of school because they didn’t get enough technical education. Both of those complaints and expectations are absolutely reasonable. Maybe instead working behind a desk, inside a dispensary, or on their knees cleaning the floors, those students could be practicing the skills they’re paying to learn so none of us have anything to complain about. Instead, we’re placing the burden on the schools to teach the students how to be both model employees and technically proficient, within hourly limitations we nearly universally agree are inadequate.

This position undermines the argument for increased standards, causing a domino effect that ends with deregulation.

We cannot say on one hand, “Schools don’t provide enough practical instruction. We need more hours to ensure our students are better prepared to execute quality services safely,” and say at the same time, “Students should be made to spend their valuable, limited hours doing tasks completely unrelated to their education.”

If we’re going to make a legitimate argument for increasing graduation standards (particularly for specialist licenses like nails and skin care), we must demand that schools better utilize their time with the students.

Courts object to student exploitation for good reason. Schools push for states to increase hourly requirements and bake them into our regulations so they can qualify for federal funding. If the states realized how much of that time the schools argued was so “critical” to the student’s education was spent doing work that has nothing to do with the program’s curriculum, they would drop the hourly requirements, which would compromise the school’s ability to take federal aid, which would then compromise enrollment. It’s impossible to argue that every hour counts and is absolutely necessary to getting students prepared to meet minimum state board standards when your students are spending so much of that time answering phones, stocking retail, and doing the salon’s laundry during clocked instructive hours.

This argument also imperils licensing standards altogether by bolstering legislators’ arguments for deregulation. Our schools walk a fine line—hourly requirements have to be high enough to justify a cost that will allow their students to qualify for federal aid, but not so high that legislators can argue that they’re unreasonable. Until wages for the profession increase and attrition decreases, schools have no room to increase rates or hours, so ultimately, schools (and, by extension, our industry) are hamstrung.

Moving Forward

As more students choose technical schools over colleges, we need to address a few key issues.

1. Where do we draw the line between practical clinical experience and compensable labor?
2. How should we define the scope of our technical schools?
3. How can we ensure schools are prohibited from (and punished for) exploiting their students?

In Part 2: The Industry’s Education Solution, we’ll tackle those questions, but until then, what do you think? Should schools be allowed to use students as janitors? Should instructors be required to physically observe and participate during clinic hours? With regards to job training, where do the school’s responsibilities end and an employer’s begin?

Reason 1: Because you’re losing. Whether it’s money, overall life satisfaction, or self-respect you are losing something by not prioritizing your goals. You’re missing opportunities–opportunities to learn, to succeed, to progress, to make new friends, and to fail and learn and fail better. Every day you spend doing something that doesn’t fulfill you is a waste, and you deserve better.

Reason 2: Because you’re running out of time. It might not feel like it, since every day you work in a job you hate makes the days feel as if they’re everlasting, but every second the clock ticks forward towards your final moment.

Facts are facts—you are going to die.

Do you feel that existential dread? If not, you should.

You probably won’t die today or tomorrow, but maybe you will. You can’t rely on tomorrow because tomorrow isn’t guaranteed to any of us, not even you. Time is a finite resource, and you’re meandering through each day as if you’re immune to accidents, disease, and all the other random, tragic things that suddenly and permanently end the lives of the humans around you every single day. You can be taken just as easily. What the hell are you waiting for?

Reason 3: Because you can. You want to move into your own suite? You want to open your own salon? You want to expand into another location and/or hire more employees? You want to launch that YouTube channel and become an educator or influencer?

Do it, because you can.

You are capable. While success can’t be guaranteed, you can make failure a lot less likely if you start preparing now. Things are not just going to just happen for you, so stop waiting for the planets to align on your behalf. Establish reasonable deadlines and set a plan into motion. Break your big goals into small ones and get to work.

New Years’ Resolutions are for suckers. Quit making empty promises to yourself and start executing.

Are you done making empty promises to yourself? What are you going to do to make your dreams happen—starting today? What reasons excuses are you setting fire to right now? Let us know in the comments!