Beauty Business Strategies
The podcast where salon, spa, medspa, barbershop, and lash studio owners — just like you — learn quick tips to make more money, inspire your team, and create world-class client experiences.
Beauty Business Strategies
Revolutionizing the Salon Workweek for Maximum Efficiency with Wafaya Abdallah
In this episode, Wafaya Abdallah, owner of Curly Oasis Inc, reveals how specializing in curly hair and embracing a team-based approach dramatically increased productivity. This episode isn't just about the highs of winning a productivity award; it’s a raw look at the challenges that followed, including the departure of key staff members. Wafaya opens up on what it takes to rebuild, proving that the journey of success is as much about adaptability as it is about accolades.
Step into the world of enhanced team efficiency as we dissect the benefits of refining the traditional workweek, introducing a game-changing dedicated training day that improves skill levels without upending existing schedules. We consider the advantages and practicalities of a compressed workweek, diving into how it could benefit both the staff and the business’s bottom line. Tune in for a transformative conversation that highlights Wafayah's evolution as a leader and her perspective shift that turns life’s challenges from hurdles into launching pads for growth.
Conversation Highlights:
1:45 From Award Winner to Facing Curveballs
5:14 Embracing Change and Seeing Challenges as Opportunities
5:55 Impactful Advice from a fellow Strategies member
8:40 Listening Deeply to Understand and Adapt
10:59 The Magic Pill: A 4-day workweek
12:54 Leading with Curiosity
14:07 Behaviors Drive the Numbers
16:07 Achieving Work/Life Harmony
21:49 Wafaya's One Takeaway
Watch the video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/4y_5oj0Pezk
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The Beauty Business Strategies Podcast is designed to give salon, spa, medspa, barbershop, and lash studio owners, just like you, quick tips to make more money, inspire your team, and create world-class client experiences.
Welcome to the Beauty Business Podcast. I am Michael Yost, joined by Christy Hardy. Christy, how are you?
Speaker 2:Terrific. How are you today, Michael?
Speaker 1:Awesome, Awesome. So we also have a special guest with us today. Wafeya, how are you, Woo Hi?
Speaker 3:Wafeya. Hey y'all, I'm great Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Awesome For those that are not familiar, while we are very familiar with you. I always love to have any guests that we have introduce themselves, so why?
Speaker 3:don't you give us just a brief introduction of yourself and your business and just an overview for anyone listening? Okay, my name is Wafaya Abdallah. I own Curly Oasis Inc in Rockville, maryland. It is a curly hair salon. I've been with Strategies since 2005, when we first opened using the team-based system, which I'm a big fan of, and, yeah, I'm super excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome. So one of the things that we want to talk about today is the overarching theme today that I want to discuss is around productivity, because you are our current reigning champion when it comes to team-based awards on productivity. So you know that came with a really cool you know bit of hardware, comes with a really a recognition of a lot of really hard work on your end. But, as we were talking about it, it also came with some things that you might not always expect. That happens along life's journey and the journey of a business owner that I think many people can relate to. So talk to me about where you know, just talk to me about that idea of productivity winning the award. You know what that was like, what it took to kind of get there, but then also kind of what happened, you know to kind of set the table, what happened in the in the time between then and now.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, our productivity, I think, is based on the gift of curly hair. Very few salons specialize and really understand the art of curl and we are deep into it. We are booked out for months ahead and also really learning to use our time wisely. When we're that busy, we can't allow the communication to slip away. We need to stay efficient in our system so that we can maximize our productivity but also not lose sight of our functionality as a team, and so it was a wonderful celebration to win the productivity of the year award at this last conference with strategies, and I teasingly say I'm not going to go for an award again, because sometimes you win an award and I feel like the universe says oh, you want to be award worthy, let's give you a challenge so that you can level up.
Speaker 3:So what happened after that is I went to Egypt. I led a group to Egypt, my motherland, and really left the team in great shape. The time that I was away I stayed very connected. I met with each decide to leave the company. I so did not see that coming. And then, very shortly after that, another leader in the company also decided to move on, and so I thought to myself okay, great for productivity. Who won employee retention?
Speaker 3:Let me reach out to that person and I did, and you know when you're going, I really say that this time of transition was gut-wrenching because we were really close, had a lot of love and connection. You know, I thought I really felt I had my finger on the pulse of the company and when something like that happens, it's, it's painful and and I immediately thought to myself, you know is, is this really happening against me or or for me? Is it for the company or against the company? And had to really get introspective and try to not beat myself up too much because I think, as leaders, that's what we do. And the whole saying people quit, leaders, not companies. Where did I fail? Where was I unaware? Where did I fail? Where was I unaware? And once, you know, as I was going to my pity party, I thought and opportunity for growth. And I really appreciated what someone said to me is that they read in a book by very successful business people, book by very successful business people. I don't remember the book, I remember the lesson and that is, the people who get you from zero to a hundred won't necessarily be the same people who get you from a hundred to a thousand and won't be the same people who get you from a thousand to 10,000. And I know I'm using small numbers here, but you get my gist and I thought, okay, perhaps then this is the cycle of a growth of a company, that this is what needs to happen to have that leveling up. And so I'd really love to share some of what Christy Newell, who won employee retention, shared with me.
Speaker 3:Okay, so when I reached, when I reached out, the first thing she said is you know, my company didn't really get to the place that it is until I loosened my grip a little bit and I thought I've been loosening my grip, how much more can I loosen? And but I listened, I listened, I listened and I appreciated that. And then she said you know, this younger workforce that they just need to be heard. They're going to say all kinds of crazy stuff or, you know, maybe not so crazy stuff, but ultimately they really just want to be heard. And I thought, okay, that's something I've been working on to improve.
Speaker 3:Okay, and then she said you know, some people have families or whatever. They want it to be part-time. And I thought to myself, what difference does it make, as long as the hours are covered for the company? Now, I was always under the impression of part-time employee means part-time performance, and she said she really hasn't found that that when she was able to meet the needs of people around scheduling, that people did show up 100%, and so I really appreciated that. And with what happened next, I remembered those words and they really did were very useful. And and what happened next?
Speaker 1:So with a I want to jump back to you know, something you said is. You brought up three or four things that kind of trigger questions in my brain, and I want to jump back to something you shared, you know, that was passed along to you from Christy, and again you mentioned the idea that about people just want to be heard. You know, team members want to be heard. How did that? What's that? What does that look like in your company? What did you take from that, I guess, and how is that starting to kind of show up in your company? Because when I think about that, I can think about maybe five or six different ways that, okay, I would interpret and go oh, when I say, hey, listen, you know I feel as though I'm being heard. I got a few things in my brain that I think about. But how is that showing up for you now in a different way than maybe it was, and what's that mean in your culture and in your environment?
Speaker 3:You know this concept of deep listening and and I I did also at some point reach out to Bruce Horrigan, who's on the strategies team, who's, I think, an excellent listener, and he talked about the concept of deep listening. What I understood and what I've learned is just because someone says something doesn't mean there's not more behind it. Often, you know, when your team members have a high regard for the leader, they can maybe unknowingly or knowingly say things because they think that's what you want to hear. When we were going through this shift. Of course, now I've got some team members that are going through it with me and I understood that I had to really hold space for them. And you know, one of my a couple of people really struggled with change. It wasn't anything more than change and, like I said, we were so close. I could see how that that would be difficult for them. So I kept meeting with them and each time I met I simply would ask tell me what's showing up for you today, or tell me how you feel about this transition. And they were honest. Some of it was hard to hear and yet I promised myself that I would say nothing, that I would only listen, and, of course, when people are speaking on a deeper level, there's some emotion involved, and so it can be messy. And so it was great because it was a period of days, and so I was able to sit with the information that I heard and sift through what I could release, the emotional piece, and what I could take away, and and I really kept meeting with them I didn't stop. In fact, some a couple of other team members were like man, there's so much change, we're not sure we even want to stick around, you know. But they hadn't made any move. They were just trying to give me fair warning, which I appreciated. And as we kept talking and I kept listening, what came out of it is.
Speaker 3:So we had this five day work week, with Tuesday being a half day of team development, and it worked great. It was needed Meditate, do yoga, did a lot of stuff around how we're showing up as individuals. And as they were saying this, I thought, well, gosh to heck with it. I'm just going to take Tuesday to train the new team members, and y'all are skill certified, I can work with training as we go with you while you're here. For the time that you're here, take Tuesday off, just come in for the four days. Well, my gosh, within a week, apparently that was the magic pill.
Speaker 3:What I heard is a four day work week is hard to beat. We're no longer looking anywhere else. We love it and you know I did it because I was just like I'm done. But wow, and then you know, for a long time we were going toward a four day work week.
Speaker 3:Anyway, in my mind, we needed to have pieces in place, a certain amount of people, before we could transition to that. What came to pass is oh well, what if we need to make that change in order to grow the team in a better and more efficient way? And that is such a selling point that once you're skill certified, you go to a four-day work week. Now we have more people applying, more people engaged and you know, through the application and hiring process, loving it, and this is a sign of the times. This is what this workforce is asking for, and we could.
Speaker 3:You know I did get there by listening, but the resolution wasn't anything that I intentionally planned. It just kind of came up and really allowing. So back to the listening piece. I mean, sometimes people say things where you want to explain or defend and I would just say don't Listen, just listen and ask more questions.
Speaker 3:And one of the things I did, you know I told you I remain a student and for Black Friday, I saw something on a platform that I am involved in for education purposes and it was a life coaching program, and I thought, well, I need to do that. And it was a significant amount off. And what I've gotten from this life coaching is really how to ask the right questions, and even you know, you can challenge when somebody says in a way of are you sure this is 100% true? Where did that belief come from? But really ask, just learning to ask the right questions, and wow, is it a game changer for me as a leader? It is. It helps me separate my emotions, my ego, and really be present for that person. And, as I'm listening, what I'm thinking about is more questions to get clear what exactly they're trying to tell me.
Speaker 2:That's excellent. So really, wafeya, what you're saying is, productivity has nothing to do with an action, it has everything to do with behaviors and truly listening 100%.
Speaker 3:But I'll tell you our numbers have shifted in this time. I mean, we just hit goal and I think we exceeded it by several thousand dollars in February, where people were sick and we had two snow days. So, yes, behaviors drive the numbers, behaviors drive the productivity, behaviors drive everything in a business. And, yeah, when people are heard and are happier, they're going to show up better.
Speaker 2:That's an incredible story with Faya.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to, you know I want to touch back and you kind of just touched on it with a. You know I know a lot of people, you know probably wondering all right, you cut back to, since we said the theme of this is based around productivity. Cutting back to a four day week, you know we could probably make some assumptions and say, all right, those days probably got busier, but at the same time cutting back hours. Give me a little bit of the nuts and the bolts behind, like, what is that looking like as far as when it comes to just your productivity itself? Was it a real shift in the amount of hours you had for sale? Or we just kind of restructured, you know, four day weekend? We found there wasn't much shift in what we had, what we were offering for sale.
Speaker 1:Give me a little bit more of that like again, more of that nuts and bolts of as you made these changes in, you know, your work week and all of that. We can definitely sense the change in culture, the change in just you know, that whole side of it, which I love. But what was the change on the other side? Again, just a number side of it, the business side of it, balancing the business side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's that?
Speaker 1:look, yeah, that balance between that, you know, work-life balance and whatever you want to say it. But how's the? What's that look like from a work standpoint?
Speaker 3:Gotcha. Well, you know I prefer the term work-life harmony because that's ultimately what we're seeking, and we were already seeing clients four days a week. That fifth day was about team development, uh, skill certification, um, so that didn't change, and we got busier in the sense because now I've got this day devoted to training new staff members, which is now more efficient because not having to balance okay, well, I have to train this person who's further along in the journey and this person who's brand new. I can just focus on the new staff and so I can get them skill certified in services faster. And so that was part of the increase, and that's how we were. We were already booked for months ahead. We're right now booking in June, and so there was no wiggle room to be more productive. We simply were able to show up better for the hours we have for sale and then train new staff so that they could also offer whatever service they're skill certified for. So we're able to train a little faster because I'm just able to focus on them on Tuesday, and so we didn't need to change the hours for the existing staff. We simply just said OK, come in the days that you're serving clients Now, when we have meetings, of course that has to be on a Tuesday because, come on, give me a break.
Speaker 3:We're already at a 32 hour work week and they appreciate that. They're like, of course, absolutely so once a month on Tuesday. They're here for four days and that's when we can do some, you know skill, whatever skill development, have our meeting. If we are doing some kind of personal development, we can do it now once a month on that day. And, of course, looking ahead, at holidays, the 4th of July, I believe, is on a Thursday. So I said, guys, we need to make this work, so can we switch those hours to Tuesday and you're still getting a four day work week. And again, of course, they agreed to that. And so it's making sure and keeping the grip on the hours for sale and not just like, oh well, we don't work Tuesday and we have a holiday off. I mean there has to be some give and take and they understand that. They're just really happy to have the time and I get it.
Speaker 3:You know what, man, if the younger, me and even me now, a four day work week's great, who doesn't want that? Who doesn't want that? I mean we don't have to criticize this generation. We need to really learn how to be effective in embracing what they hold to be true in their world and figure out how to make it work. And you know, christy Newell was just such a godsend because and I love using the greater strategies community to reach out to other owners and say help, what have you figured out? You know, and I've really enjoyed our exchanges and she's so right. She's like I have a Google calendar. They want to do this. I just need to make it work for the company. And, by the way, it makes great sense because now I was, we're able to, let's just say, you have a team of four, you're able to add another person and not increase your payroll because they went to a four day work week. Now we're able to have another person and it doesn't change that, so it's very efficient financially as well. That's. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:It's really, you know, I love the. You know how you kind of brought that all together. Is, you know, for someone that's that's listening, it's like how can this really start to work itself out? And we can, I think, get a great sense of how that works out for you. And I love the fact that, like I said, not only you know, in many ways we became much more efficient. I think the thing that's interesting, you know, to me is because you had mentioned it, you know, when you said a lot of times and again, you know we could call it old school attitude, whatever you want to say, but I loved how you had mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1:It's like sometimes we kind of live by the idea of part-time equals part-time approach and part-time attitude and the fact is, obviously that's been showing itself to be completely the opposite as far as that goes. But I know I want to ask you personally how big a jump was this for you? Because again, I know, a lot of times as business owners most business owners are always, you know, kind of fighting that introspection for themselves about am I doing the right things? Am I the right type of leader? Am I challenging myself in the right ways or any kind of questioning any number of things.
Speaker 1:You came back and I come back to the beginning of this story came back, you know. You know you came back to something that said, hey, here's a challenge, I lost two people out of my company that were very important to my company, very important to you, I'm sure, personally as well, and kind of on this journey, you know, as we kind of wrap up in the last few minutes that we have, I'm interested to know for you as a leader, what's that again, knowing how deeply especially you take that in kind of process and how you take things, what's been the learning experience for you from all of this, as you kind of look at it now in its bigger scope of it, what's been the one key thing for you that's stood out as a leader, that you've learned in this journey?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, there's so much, but I will say this I think this was something that came to me that really shifted my perspective, and that is when we're facing challenges, are they here to hinder our progress or present growth opportunities? And you know, again, I read a lot, I listen to a lot of podcasts, I listened to all kinds of things. I love learning and you know, I was listening I think it was Jay Shetty, and I forget who he had on. Oh, dave Asprey, I believe the biohacking king.
Speaker 3:And they were saying you know, just because we have this fame and recognition doesn't mean we don't have internal stuff in our companies that we've had to endure. We just don't talk about it, whether it's, you know, chief financial officers that have stolen money, or, and each thing that they've gone through was not a setback, it was an opportunity for learning and growth, and I can already tell you that, within a four month period, things are so much better, so much better, and even at the time, I told myself there's not a yin without a yang, and so if we're going to suffer and we're going to be kind of low and sad as a leader, then, my God, good times lay ahead.
Speaker 3:Then, my god, good times lay ahead and so yeah yeah, just understanding that challenges are opportunities for growth, and our suffering really comes from when our expectation of reality isn't being met and we really don't have that kind of control. So how about then? We just stay open to lessons and surrender to the guidance and really open ourselves up to what it is we need to learn and how we need to grow.
Speaker 2:I love it. Wafeya, that advice goes for every business leader it doesn't matter if it's beauty industry or anywhere else and every parent and every friend and every human being. So really good share.
Speaker 1:Awesome. This has been awesome with Faye. We got to keep doing this because every time we get a chance to talk, you always bring great insight and, I think, a great just again perspective on things and just kind of always shoot it straight to, to what's happening and don't sugarcoat things and and challenges are challenges, but here's how we overcome them. So I love what you had to share with us today, christy. Any last thoughts on your end?
Speaker 2:No, but thank you, wefea, for being vulnerable and allowing us to hear that you know, the most successful businesses absolutely continue to work through challenges, and it's about how we internalize it and then make a change necessary for our business. So, as always, amazing job. Thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 3:My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Oh, you are welcome. And, to everyone out there, thanks for tuning in, thanks for listening and we will see you again on our next podcast.
Speaker 4:Have a great day see you again on our next podcast. Have a great day. Thanks again for listening to the Beauty Business Strategies podcast. If you liked this episode, be sure to hit follow and please share the episode link with anyone who you think could benefit from today's content. To learn more about how strategies can help create more fun, profit and growth potential for you, your company and your team, we invite you to schedule a free 60 minute strategy session by clicking the direct link in the description of this episode. There you also find links to our wide array of coaching, seminar and learning opportunities, all of which can be found at strategiescom.