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
Building Your Dream Team: Finding Talent That Thrives in Your Salon/Spa Culture with Leslie Winterrowd
On this episode, Leslie Winterrowd, a seasoned salon owner and Certified Strategies Coach, joins us to share her wealth of knowledge on recruiting and hiring service providers that fit your salon/spa. Together, we dissect the nuanced art of crafting job postings that don't just speak to the skill set but resonate with the core values and culture that make your salon/spa stand out. Leslie's insights are a game-changer, shifting the focus from dangling carrots like pay to connecting with the aspirations of a workforce yearning for meaningful employment.
This episode is a heartfelt exploration of why the right attitude and synergy among your team can outshine technical prowess every time. Through candid discussions and real-life examples, we illuminate how a strong set of shared values can not only magnetize the right staff but also foster an environment where both creativity and camaraderie flourish.
Conversation highlights:
1:00 Today's recruiting and hiring challenges
2:53 Optimizing your job ad to attract top talent
4:42 The difference with today's applicant pool
5:30 Hiring and recruiting strategies in salons/spas
12:59 Value-based culture in hiring practices
18:13 Living and implementing organizational values
Watch the video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/uzd3N3y8kto
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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 Strategies Podcast. I'm Christy Hardy, joined with Michael Yost today and we have an awesome special guest in Miss Leslie Winter-Rode, who is a salon owner at Gold Wave Salon down in Fort Worth Texas, and she is one of our incredible certified strategies coaches. Welcome, Leslie, we're glad to have you today, Hello.
Speaker 3:Hello, hello, Hello Leslie.
Speaker 1:So we are really excited to talk to you today, leslie. We're going to focus and dial it in on hiring and recruiting. It is something that is a question that tons of salon and spa owners right now are talking about. They're calling in, asking us for our ideas and everything, and Michael and I know you have some incredible information, some incredible knowledge, and we just want to be able to kind of bend your ear and share some of your expertise. Perfect, I hope I help. Yeah, yeah, you're going to give lots of words of wisdom. It's going to be great so. So, leslie, tell us a little bit about you. Know, like, what do you hear? What do you hear as a coach? That is something that's around recruiting and hiring. That is kind of a concern out there for owners right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the biggest thing I hear, whether it be in our industry, on coaching calls or even anywhere else, is finding people. I can't find people. I can't even get the first interview. Or you hear the I got the interview and then I was ghosted or they no-showed, and so it's either I can't get anyone to apply or, when they do, I never get the interview anyways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what are different ways then? Michael, you can pipe in too, because I'm sure you have a lot of ideas that you're hearing out there. What are different ways then? Michael, you can pipe in too, because I'm sure you have a lot of ideas that you're hearing out there. What are different ways we can help support these owners, who are saying this over and over.
Speaker 3:You know, I think one of the challenges is, you know again, if you're talking about attracting and getting people to show up.
Speaker 3:For me personally and this might be getting just even a little bit ahead in some thinking, and this might be getting just even a little bit ahead in some thinking but I think getting people to show up and to be a part is, I wonder, if they get a good sense of they don't have second thoughts about what they think, if they think they fit the business, Do I fit this business and is this something that looks like a fit for me? Like, initially, maybe in that moment of excitement, I applied, I put it out there, Cool, but then I stepped back for a moment and maybe they started looking at, maybe your website, or maybe they started looking at social media, or they started looking at whatever right, Talking to friends and for whatever reasons. They might've maybe said you know what? I'm changing course on this because I'm not sure if this fits who I am and do they see themselves in that environment? And again, I you know, I'm not sure if that's, you know, one of those pieces that fits or not. I don't know, Leslie, what are you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, right now, it's something I even had to do recently. I think I would challenge every owner out there is go look at where you are recruiting, whether it's on Instagram or if it's on deed, if it's in a newspaper, like I don't know wherever you're doing it, but go look at it and read it from a I'm looking for a job in this and would you go work for you? Yeah, does that, you know? Does that excite you to go? Man, this is exactly the place I want to be, you know, I, I just, I think that I think that's one of the biggest things I see. You know, especially when people say I can't get any. I can't get any applicants to come in, is they'll say and I'll go okay, show me your recruiting ad or show me what you're putting out there, and it's like you want to join a team.
Speaker 2:We do a lot of education and we pay hourly and we have benefits and we provide X, y and it's like this bullet list of nothing. That's special, yes, and so it's it's. You know, where can you really get that? That? What makes you special, what sets you apart? What makes you different? It's not, it's no longer benefits and education and how you pay and what you pay in the percent hour. That's not special anymore. People are looking, you know, especially generationally, you know I mean, I'm Gen X, I know Michael's Gen X, like we were in it to work hard so we could play hard, right. And I don't think this next generation coming up is necessarily wanting to. It's not to say they don't want to work hard, but they want a lot more purpose in life. And so is there anything connecting this generation to a bigger purpose, even in how you're recruiting?
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do we figure out what that difference is? You know, like, what do you think on that? I was going to say.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know the differences. I think it's a word that you just used at the end there, leslie is this idea of I think we've got to find ways to create connection. Yes, and you know, because I think that is the change, and I agree with you, leslie. It's like, from what I observe and people I talk to, and team members and things of that nature having done, even just recently, a number of onsites with teams, I didn't get a one sense that any one of those team members wasn't willing to work hard. It just, though, is a matter of, I think the view is different in some ways than in what motivates them to work hard, but I think there's a part of. I think connection is a big part in that and how you make a connection, and, like you mentioned, leslie, it's what are we putting out there? Would you work for you based upon your job? And I think that's a great question to ask, because, like you said, you put out, we put out out a lot of generic terms, but oh, we're fun.
Speaker 1:Well, what makes you fun?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Right, like your definition of fun. Yeah, share people. What makes what, what about you is fun? What do you do to have fun? What did what? You say we work together as a team. Well, what does team really look like for you? Because my definition and your definition team two different things more than likely. And what that looks like, and that's that connection part I'm connecting to. I see myself in that environment because that's what their fun looks like, my kind of fun. Their team looks like my kind of team. There, you know.
Speaker 1:I think, too, it's important to just kind of stay on that topic for a second that it's not just about an Indeed post or a post on Facebook or wherever you're recruiting at this point or wherever you're putting your job description out there. I think we have to remember that our entire Instagram feed, our entire TikTok page, our entire website, everything that is out there for people to research us and look at us need to show what the definition of fun is, what the definition of connection is, because we can put a job post up there. But, to your point, Leslie, it's just bullet points unless we can show it. So there's such a visual component to hiring and recruiting that I think sometimes we forget about. People are spending way more time looking at what we put out there before they decide they actually want to commit to coming in and talking to us.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think sometimes what stands in our way is we've been told that we need to look a certain way or we've learned a certain. You know, I see it in what we teach at Strategies. You know, we're team-based and we're team-based pay, and we put all these little, these bullet points, in there, and they're all valid and good. And you still have to have your point of difference. And I'm going to throw one out here. That's completely not me, just to just so I can speak on it, just on a different, but I've. I saw an ad recently and it was you know, we're looking for a unicorn. Come join our team. We binge reality TV, we drink whiskey, we like to smoke, you know, but it but you got a feel of vibe that was going on. And you know, and if I look and going back to Instagram, if I'm, if I go to look at their Instagram, there better be pictures of Beverly Hills, housewives and parties drinking the finest whiskey and smoking the best cigars or whatever, and really, really emulating that. And so, you know, someone asked me one time because we were talking, we were actually talking about the word fun and we were talking about what that meant. And you know, I think even Michael, we've even had this conversation. It's like, you know, for me fun's reading a book, for other people Fun is going out.
Speaker 2:For you know, we all have a different definition of it. So defining what those mean, you know, even education education in my company looks different than it does in anybody else's company, you know. And so define what that is. Apprenticeships apprenticeships look different in my company, you know. New talent stylist, you know new talent program training program looks different in every single company. And so you have to start defining that and making that your point of difference. And here was the best example, and this is what really made me go whoa, I've got a lot to think about. But someone said what's the definition of luxury? And we all sat there on this call. It was like a little brainstorming group I'm in and someone said an Hermes scarf. And I was like I've never even seen an Hermes scarf. I mean maybe on TV, but you know I've never even seen an airmaid scarf. I mean maybe on TV, but you know.
Speaker 3:and then someone said you know, this vacation and and then someone said time yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, and because those were said it was, it was, there were tangible things there, and then there was time. You know, and you know what, if, what? If that's what we said we valued and we're looking at team members that value time, what does that speak about your culture? But defining that I don't know. I mean, I think there's so many.
Speaker 3:You know we could chase a little, you know even side, you know road with that is. I think that's exactly to this and it fits this whole point of this conversation. And, by the way, before I get into the point, just as a sidebar, leslie, I need you to send me that job posting with the smoking and the whiskey because I'm looking for a good weekend gig. That sounds like a really good weekend job. We're like whiskey smoking, cigars and binging television. That's the Saturday man. That sounds like a good Saturday.
Speaker 3:But that being said, going to the point, you know, coming back on point with this is you know, just that idea of time and again it is something that is probably the highest value commodity right now is how are you that alone? How are you showing people that in your you know, in what you're putting out there when it comes to recruiting people in? I would just I'll make the point just to say, if you're not doing something in a job posting, a listing, or something that you show that doesn't talk to some degree about time and what it looks like in your company and how you value time and what you do with that, you don't have to change things up. But what I'm. What I want to put out there is the fact that if you're willing to have flexibility with schedules and time, you need to show that you need to, you need to tell that, but at the same time, if you're a person that says no, I believe in a in a X amount of hours work week, whether it's a 32 hour, 40 hour, whatever it is, and that's what you do and this is the way we work here, that's fine.
Speaker 3:But make that clear as well, because you all attract people that are like-minded. In that sense, one's not right, one is not wrong. We don't have to be ultimately flexible, but it time is the one big button out there, for sure that new people are looking for, and that's a real. That's again, that's a differentiator that just says how do we look in this area? Cause if you don't show that to me clearly, I'm going to go to someone that can. I'm going to go to someone that does show me that clearly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, leslie. Let's go into a little bit more kind of on this. The job description piece. You and I were talking last week and you shared a little bit about your specific stylist job post a little bit about your specific stylist job post and I dove in and I jumped into Indeed and I found the Gold Waves stylist job posting and I was so incredibly impressed because it painted a picture of what your team really is passionate about. Can you share with us a little bit of what the thought process and who helped you develop that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wish that I had it in front of me and I wish I would have read it before you asked me the questions, but I can tell you it was a. It was a lengthy process of brainstorming amongst a bunch of us and it was everyone from the newest people on board to myself and everybody in between. And it's like what are we really looking for? And, honestly, what are we not saying? That's more important than what we are saying. And so you know, when we say hardworking, what does that mean? When we say want to be a part of a team, what does that mean?
Speaker 2:You know, and I don't know how it's defined in there and there again, I think you know, especially in the hair industry, I think it can be a very intimidating place to go interview, especially at a school. And for us, it's so much more important to be kind and have a great attitude than it is to have any kind of skill set, have a great attitude than it is to have any kind of skill set. Yeah, and I know that's not the same for for all, for all companies. You know, our, our, our core, number one core value is harmony and that is the one thing that, if broken it's, it's the deal breaker.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that means bad attitude, unkind or not a team player, and and so so it's more of speaking those kinds of things, because I think that, you know, I have seen a lot of people come on board and they're really good at doing the skillset, really good at working with clients. Terrible team player, terrible at, you know, anticipating the needs of others and and sometimes can have a bad attitude, ego. You know, let pride get in the way and that's a deal breaker for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't go out and copy that if it's not. I'm just saying that for us it is. And where that stemmed from was my mom. She's been doing hair for 60 something years and grew up in the booth rental stages and she was treated horribly. One of the first booth renters in Fort in Fort Worth, texas, and people treated her horribly in salon she worked in and she said I'm going to open my own place where everybody gets along and there's a lot of windows and she, you know harmony has always been her core value, but but it's, it's truly just carried its legacy of, of the and the why of it. It's like we've got to, we've got to enjoy where we were. Yeah, and the why of it.
Speaker 2:It's like we've got to we've got to enjoy where we were. Yeah and so, but those are the things that we put in a job. You know? Hire for attitude, train for skill versus you know, show me your portfolio and all the good you can do.
Speaker 1:I think you just hit the nail on the head. Say that, that statement one more time hire for value. What did you say, Hire for?
Speaker 2:attitude. Train for skill, Like I don't care if you can cut hair, Agree, We'll teach you how to do that but you've got to have a good attitude, yeah.
Speaker 3:I love it. I'm going to build off your values piece simply because you know, throughout this, you know we've talked about the ways that we can show ourselves differently what are our points of difference, and I think this really gets at the heart of it. Well, yes, we can list our values in a sense in a job posting or things like that. But I think I'm going to take it a little bit farther and just kind of go. Here's one thing that we know is an attractor, and that's culture. Culture always attracts people. Culture is a magnet for people. Think about again, for those listening and watching this podcast, you know again. Think about why you go to the places you go to. Why is your favorite restaurant your favorite restaurant? Why is your favorite hangout your favorite hangout, whatever it is right. Why are you attracted, even to the point of like, maybe for some like. Why do you drive the type of car you drive? Because there might be something that's like hey, listen, I'm attached to that culture. Why do I? Why is every product that I own an Apple based product? Because there is a point in there somewhere that said hey, when that first was launched, I was attracted to that culture and what I wanted. So now and now, my life is just completely enveloped in it and I'm never changing because it's too hard, even if I wanted to. But the culture is what can be a separator, and part of that culture is stems that's rooted in your values, and to go back to that, because that's the part that really builds that culture.
Speaker 3:But, as you said already, I think if you're even listening, and myself and, and you know, you talk about harmony and even just you sharing that story about your mother and just about saying, hey, you know what I'm going to open, place and harmonies at the core and we're going to. This is what I want to build. All of a sudden, now I have a, I already have a sense of your business, even if never, never visited your business, right, and so I think we have to look and really honor what are the values that are important to us in our business, and then how do those things start to shine through? Because I think a lot of times we can tend to I hate to say it we can tend to ignore our values and just go. I'm just looking for people and hope they fit instead of going. You know what if I stuck to what I truly am anchored in. That's what's going to make a difference for me.
Speaker 3:For sure you know that's what's going to make a difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, you can look at any any multi-billion dollar company down to a small coffee shop, and you can look at those cultures that you love to go in, and I would be willing to put my next lotto win I didn't win a couple of days ago, but I'm still trying Be willing to put my next lotto win that the cultures you enjoy going into are founded on values. What I will say about that, though, too, is values can get real tricky, you know. I mean, I think I read the other day like Enron's values were excellence, integrity and honesty, or something like that.
Speaker 1:So those were just for pieces of paper. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:and and and truly values is. You know. I mean, back in the eighties it was retrovision statement and everybody had grandiose and they painted them on the wall and hung up, you know, and values is kind of turned into that kind of speak now and when it when it comes to culture, and so it's one of those things you either dive into it or you leave it alone. You can't do it halfway. I was going to say.
Speaker 3:that brings up something that we we've all uh no, said a lot and it's repeated here and used to be repeated in classes and things like that. Again, values, it's quite simple If you want them, you need to live them.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And that's kind of what you're referring to, leslie, with this idea is we can put cool posters on the wall or, cool, you know, hang the stuff in the back room about what our values are, because that's what the words that we like, or maybe what we'd like to be or aspire to be, but realistically, for this to resonate, it's got to be, and that was great. I love the example of that, enron, and you know that whole piece is if you want them, you better live them. Yeah, and that's what separates, because people can tell genuine versus not. And that might be just kind of. The last piece is you know, in our time that we have here together is just to say I think that could be for talking about making a connection. You're talking about what's going to attract. You got to be genuine and I think that's the, that's the biggest piece with this is, you know, just that genuine component of this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, for sure. And you know, something I read recently too that I had to really ponder on. It was values inflict pain and I'm like what does?
Speaker 2:that mean yeah, yeah, and, and you know it's because when you, when you implement and say this if my values harmony, okay, that means my decisions have to live that. And so that for me that means if I have a someone who brings in a million dollars a day but has a bad attitude and creates dysfunction with the rest of the team, that means I got to have a conversation, or I got to get rid of the, the, the cancer, yes and so and so with you know, sometimes, sometimes to live your values, it will. You, you can't go the easy route in business. You, you know you want to make a decision that maybe generates more money over here, but it doesn't live up to your values. And so there there's a, there's a lot of things in there.
Speaker 2:But the other thing is you put those big values out there and say this is who we are, and then people show up and that's not. You know, I've seen we are team. And then all of a sudden, you got all these individuals doing their own thing and it's like, you know, it's not all for one and one for all, it's all for me and none for you know. And so you have, you have to live them, otherwise they create poison in your culture, and so it's just, it's something to be be careful with.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You hit the nail on the head, because unless we truly practice, what we're preaching it's the values. Really they don't mean anything. Then they're just words on a piece of paper. So this is awesome. Leslie, we could talk about this with you for hours, but we're going to let our podcasters listen to some other episodes. But if you would like more help, or just to have a conversation around your culture, your recruiting, your values and you need some support, that's what Strategies is here to help. So check out the description for um a coaching call with one of our certified strategies coaches in the description below. Leslie, thank you so much for joining us today. I can't wait till our next conversation because you have such good perspective and we really appreciate it. Your time, absolutely. Thanks for having me Talk to you soon.
Speaker 4:Bye, guys your time Absolutely. Thanks for having me Talk to you soon. Bye guys, bye.