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
Leadership Secrets for Managing Salon/Spa Teams with Laura Hess
How do you turn a group of individuals into a thriving, cohesive team? In this episode, we sit down with Laura Hess, the General Manager of A Glo Spa and Salon Co., who shares her secrets to leading a dynamic salon team. Discover A Glo's approach to managing diverse personalities and work styles, using tools like personality assessments to ensure everyone is on the same page. Learn how celebrating successes, setting meaningful goals, and promoting collaboration over competition can motivate your team, even during the slow times.
Learn more about A Glo Spa and Salon Co.: www.aglospa.com
Watch the video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/7cPfuw0xCoI
Conversation highlights:
1:15 What it's like to manage a salon/spa TEAM
2:13 How to keep your team cohesive
3:25 The challenges of managing in a team-based salon/spa environment
4:30 Keeping your team engaged/motivated
6:20 Navigating conflict amongst your team
7:33 Managing client conflict in the salon/spa
9:23 How to make your team members feel valued
11:35 How A Glo built a thriving culture
13:30 Laura's advice for someone stepping into a manager role in a salon/spa
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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 and today I'm joined with a very special guest, laura Hess, who is the General Manager at Aglow Spa and Salon. Welcome, laura, I'm so glad to have you. Thanks for having me. It's an honor to be here Awesome, thank you. Tell us just a tiny bit about your role at Aglow as the General Manager. How long have you been in it? What caused you to get into this role? And then we'll dive into some questions about being a general manager.
Speaker 2:Sure, so I've been in the industry for about 12 years and general manager for about five years.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what drew you to that position? Like, was it just like a natural? How'd you get there? Yeah, How'd you get there.
Speaker 2:So I was a career changer and so my background kind of has some management in it, some business and retail management. So it was a natural fit. But then being plugged into the industry that I really wanted to be in was kind of the key there. And then once I joined the team at Aglow I knew that was the company that I wanted to do that growing with and Christy makes it possible for opportunities to happen.
Speaker 1:So that is awesome. That is awesome and, as a general manager, I'm sure you're creating those opportunities for your team as well. Yes, you guys are a team-based pay business core year. You follow the team-based business model. Yes, tell us a little bit about what it's like to manage within a team.
Speaker 2:Well, like managing other teams, I think there's always that challenge of having lots of different personalities and working work styles and gifts and talents, and we have 45 employees, so it's a lot of women working together, so creating an environment where we can give grace to each other and understand how each other works. Our guests touch a lot of different people. That's great.
Speaker 2:A lot of people touch our guests, from guest care department to the service provider to you know. It's a lot of people involved, yeah, so just keeping that cohesive is a challenge, but I think we do it pretty well.
Speaker 1:How do you try?
Speaker 2:to keep your team cohesive. We do a lot of analyzing of not just data but things like personality assessments, working style assessments, to try to get to really pull out the gifts from people in order to thrive. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:You find where they fit, yes, and then mold them into better humans, better business leaders, better team members all of the above Right. I did that too. Leaders, better team members all of the above Right I did that too. So I'm in a similar scenario of. In my previous role, it was general manager as well, and I felt like I had the ability to help team members create their career. Yes, instead of just have a job. Yes, and that's, I think it's all about pulling that the best out of them, of them, and that's really what our job is.
Speaker 2:Right, we can manage tasks, but it's really about pulling what's best out of our team members, for sure, that's definitely the most fun is to help them to realize their potential. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, I think so too. I agree. So here I have a couple of questions for you. We're talking a little bit about building a cohesive team. Are there any unique challenges that you've faced managing in this industry, in the salon and spa environment?
Speaker 2:I think that keeping everybody productive and creating this environment of wanting to help each other and how that can translate to better for everyone. So I think that's unique to a team-based salon, for sure, but it also is worth the effort, because then there's not competition between the service providers in any way, and helping them to understand the why behind helping each other out and how if we, if we all win, like that's great for everybody, we all win, yeah, we all win. We all win, right?
Speaker 1:absolutely. I love that, the, the idea of in that team where we're not pitting people against each other, it's not building my column or my, it's building ours, ours, and I think that is so, so unique in our environment.
Speaker 2:But for sure it is.
Speaker 1:Tell us how you keep that motivation engaged. How do you stay engaged in motivating a very large team? You have a lot of responsibility around that. How do you keep yourself and your team motivated and engaged?
Speaker 2:Well, I think when you're during busy periods, it's relatively easy because we get to celebrate in the numbers every day. Yeah, and it's fast paced and it's fun and it's exciting and the energy is high. It's in like a little bit slower seasons that are the challenging part, yeah, and so what we do is we have monthly touch base meetings, we have quarterly career coaching and within those, we're constantly talking about what things are you working on to personally and professionally develop yourself and how can we help support that. And so there's always something in their back pocket that they know that they need to be working on and it's for a goal. Yeah, you know. And so just reminding and supporting that you know why did we, why did you set this as a goal for yourself, and how important that is to work on it when there's time to work on it, and do you help them set the goals? I do, but I think that they'll support what they help to create.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so we definitely use that a lot, and so I think, in order to feel motivated, we have to be working towards something, not just in something, yes, like we're, just like in it. We're kind of it's easy to feel that stagnant, yeah. Yeah. I'm bored and so like constantly working towards something, but I think that I very much want them to create it.
Speaker 1:I love it. I just hope to draw that out. I guess. Right, Asking the right questions, showing them different opportunities, that's great. For sure, that is awesome. That is awesome If you had to kind of coach another manager through handling conflict, because that's always a question I get is you know how do we navigate and address conflict within our team-based business?
Speaker 2:If there's conflict between team members, I definitely will encourage and coach for them to work it out themselves. So oftentimes if there's a conflict, someone might come to me like here's the situation, what do you think I should do? It's not like here's my situation. Please fix it for me, okay, good, so I think that that's super cool. Not that there's never a time I become involved, but it's pretty rare. That's great that I do. Usually we'll kind of maybe practice what the conversation looks like, if it's a hard one that they need to have with someone, and then they do it, and then we kind of recap after it's happened and how did it go? How could it have gone better? Did you reach the resolution or not?
Speaker 1:That is awesome. Yeah, that's great. You are creating a really safe space for your team to personally grow when you are kind of coaching them through those conversations. Yes, I think that's super important I do too I do too. What if we flip it and we think about how do we manage client conflict? So like do you, how do you get involved? At what level do you get involved and how do you coach your team through client?
Speaker 2:conflict, sure, well, it kind of depends on what the conflict is. Um, we're really blessed to have an entire leadership team so we have, um, you know, our guest care, guest care manager. Okay, so if it's kind of on the um, you know the that side of things. Um, she does an amazing job handling that. So, like if they were charged wrong or got charged for something that they didn't have, or undercharged or whatever, our guest care team will handle that. If it's more service provider related like they didn't love their hair or whatever, I see that as a great gift. First of all, that the guest is willing to give us a try to fix the problem and to redo it. I think that with any conflict, the biggest thing is to just hear what they have to say yes, and sometimes that's enough. You, are so right.
Speaker 2:So if the client who is potentially unhappy feels heard, that's the most important thing and we'll definitely do everything that we can to make things better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's a gift? I think so too. I say that all the time. All feedback is good feedback, even when sometimes it stings. Yeah, because that's how we grow. Yeah, it truly is.
Speaker 2:And I think it's sweet, because they're sometimes so concerned that the service provider will be in trouble. Yeah, and I assure them that's not the case. We welcome feedback because there's really no failure. It's opportunity for growth and learning.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, we don't get better if we don't know what we're doing For sure, that doesn't match with the needs. For sure. So let's flip it a little bit and talk about how do we make sure that our teams feel valued and they gain that confidence.
Speaker 2:How do you, as a leader, just really dive into that with them and provide this opportunity for them to feel valued and see some growth and some success. I'm a big fan of if I see something positive, I try to say it Awesome, Um, praise, praise, praise. And you know, praise, praise publicly and and you can give feedback privately. Yeah, Um, but I think you know, helping somebody cause this is how I was led, you know is that somebody believed in me before I believed in myself. Yes, and so that's what I try to help them feel because I do. There's not a team member on our staff that I don't believe in them. Yes, and so just to really help them understand, like, even if you don't believe in yourself right now, I believe in you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can borrow my belief until you feel it yourself.
Speaker 2:For sure, and then just loving them, just loving them, um, and you're listening to, to their needs and making time for that. Um, I think making time especially when I don't have time, how do you do that speaks volumes. Um, take a deep breath sometimes and just understand that um, when we allow busyness as leaders to consume us, then kindness and compassion kind of get pushed to the side. So true, and so taking the time and understanding that that is the most important thing. You know, we say, like, our team members are internal clients. Yeah, it's very true, our internal clients. It's very true. And I think that showing that we're willing to listen, even though we have a million things happening, and that we're trying to accomplish, I think that is probably the single most valuable thing to an employee to feel valued and loved, yeah, and you've built a culture of trust and compassion.
Speaker 1:And it's incredible I'm going to go on that culture piece for a second because I know how important culture is to a glow Share with some of our listeners how you've created that culture of just true dedication to your employees and building an environment where they can continue to grow. How do you guys work on your culture?
Speaker 2:I think that consistency is really important. We don't compromise on holding our huddles, Okay good Communication.
Speaker 2:We have. What we've chosen to do with huddles is we have a monthly topic for topic for wellness, and so, um, for example, in january, it was all about our mission statements. We needed some help remembering what that is, and back to the basics, and um, in february was interpersonal relationships and we. This month is mental health in the workplace, and so, um, we talk about that in Huddle. That's awesome, and so I think consistency with regard to culture is really important. What is done for one is done for all. We celebrate their lives. If someone's getting married or having a baby, we sponsor a shower for them Wonderful, and we give birthday celebrations and gifts, and I think that all of that helps them to feel valued and helps with the culture, because people want to come to work. Yeah, when you feel like it's a safe place and sometimes work is a person's safe place You're right, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 1:And I've had that experience too, right, yes, where finally somebody sees me, values me, and they may not have felt that in other portions of their lives. This is awesome. I had a question and it just popped out of my head, so I'm going to come back to it. I'm sure, but when we're building a team? So I'm going to come back to it, I'm sure, but you know, when we're building a team, is there anything that that you would recommend someone coming into the general manager role needs to focus on when trying to build team in our industry, because it's so individual right now, like we feel so much about. We hear so much about either commission salons or booth rent and those feel really disconnected. How do we connect? I know we talked about culture, but how do you build that team?
Speaker 2:I think really listening deeply to what they need is really important, but it has to be balanced with certain expectations. So, again, if expectations are the same for everybody, being consistent on that, but also having the ability to listen to what they're going through and what their needs are, if we can meet their needs and they can meet our needs, I mean that's ultimately what we want, right, and so I think consistency is the biggest thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you feel like, as a general manager, your primary focus is your internal client or your employees, those team members? Do you feel like that's your primary?
Speaker 2:responsibility, for sure. I think that it's important for me to have a pulse on how everything is operating, yeah, and making sure that we're giving the customer experience that we need to give, but it's more about helping them give that Right. It's not me directly giving that so much. Yes absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, like, yeah, that's how I felt too, that I needed to really take care of my internal client so that then, in turn, they could take care of someone else. For sure, yeah, but being able to paint that picture. So, that is awesome, all right. So I have one final question for you, and it is what advice would you give to someone who is new in managing a team in our industry?
Speaker 2:Stay humble. Okay, tell me more. I think that it's important for somebody entering leadership to not get hung up with a title yes or to think that we know all the answers. I definitely don't know all the answers. Yeah, um. I think it's just as important for us as leaders to remain coachable yeah, just like we want our team to remain coachable. Um, and teachable I guess maybe is a better word Um. But being real with my team, I think, has had a big impact on them. That they understand that I'm willing to admit if I've made a mistake is important to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and building that level of trust with them. And vulnerability, yeah, to your point, like vulnerability. If we show it, then they can feel like there's enough of a trust that they can do the same and we're going to be able to see so much growth from them. That's awesome, that is really awesome. Just have such a warm and welcoming environment. That and your generosity to not only your team but also to all of the all of us around you. It's something that that you guys are known for. You probably don't know you're known for, but there's a lot of talk about how Aglow really does support in so many ways and that dedication to growing team, growing our industry and growing ourselves as professionals. You guys are real role models for that.
Speaker 1:So thank you, thank you so much for having me my pleasure. Thank you for all you do. Thank you for joining us for today's Beauty Business Strategies Podcast. If you'd like to join us for a complimentary call, please click the link in the description below and we'll see you next time.