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
Build The Brand Clients Choose Every Time
What if your clients chose your salon for the experience and results, not the name on the station? We sit down with Cindy Reynolds, owner of Mermaid Hair Extensions in Seattle and Kirkland, to unpack a brand-first, team-based model that turns marathon extension services into a smooth, three-hour transformation. Instead of booking a stylist, guests book the salon. The calendar reads “Team Mermaid,” the pricing is transparent and all-inclusive, and the systems guarantee speed, consistency, and hospitality.
Cindy walks us through the mechanics: two to three stylists on a service, overlapping roles, and an apprenticeship pipeline that keeps prep and finishing seamless. When a client cancels or someone calls out, the brand absorbs the shock—appointments aren’t tied to a single person, so the promise holds. That reliability survived a full post-pandemic rebuild and fueled a 65% surge in 2022. The Starbucks analogy applies: people return for the product and experience, even if their favorite barista moves on; consistency builds trust, and trust builds retention.
We also dig into hiring and culture. Candidates choose between building a solo brand or joining a salaried team with strong benefits, paid medical, a 401k match, and predictable income. Mermaid offers flexibility—unlimited unpaid time off with notice—while holding firm to full-day shifts and daily huddles that keep the machine aligned. With high-ticket packages, a 1.5 stylists-per-column cadence, and clear roles, the business funds education, travel, and a real career path. Most importantly, the mission stays front and center: give women more hair, more confidence, and more joy—those “hugs and tears” moments that make the work matter.
If you’re ready to strengthen client loyalty, stabilize your book, and elevate your team’s careers, this conversation lays out the playbook. Subscribe, share with a salon owner who needs fresh thinking, and leave a review to tell us which system you’ll try first.
To learn more about how Strategies can help you create more profit, fun, and growth potential for you, your business, and your team, schedule a free 60-minute strategy session:
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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.
All right. Welcome everyone to the Beauty Business Strategies Podcast. I am Michael Yost. And today I am joined by two amazing guests. One is uh Brett Pierce, uh the owner, the leader of strategies. You know, he's getting on this podcast thing, and we're glad to have him uh with us today. And as always, we always want to find someone that's amazing, uh amazing business leaders and owners out there. And today we are joined by Cindy Reynolds. Cindy, how are you?
SPEAKER_01:I'm great, thank you. Happy to be here.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome, but glad to have you. So uh as we always start out with, hey, listen, Cindy, for those that might not know you, and shame on you if you do not know Cindy, uh, because she knows everybody. But with that in mind, Cindy or Cindy, for those that don't know you, why don't you catch everyone up to speed? Just a brief introduction about you, your business. Give us the overview.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so I'm Cindy Reynolds. I own a salon called Mermaid Hair Extensions. We actually have two locations. One is in downtown Seattle and one is right outside Seattle in Kirkland, Washington. Um, it's a specialty salon. We just do hair extensions. We do a little call or two, but our main focus is extensions. I just love the idea of just doing one thing really well and um services and products that support those services.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. Awesome. So we'll probably talk a little bit more about the business itself along the way here, along our journey. But I think one of the kind of unique things that kind of talk about, because again, we always look for kind of a unique angle. And, you know, one of the unique things I think is about as we were as again, we always kind of talk before we get the podcast going uh about some things, but there's something I think that really stands out that's very unique about your business. And when you started talking about your business from a team standpoint, uh we saw the passion and the fire come right to the surface uh right away and what you feel strongly about. So, you know, let's start with that. Let's kind of dive in right there because I think that's a great anchor point for us as we think about. Again, I think people come to this podcast as they're looking to say, how can I grow stronger teams? And how can we be more, how can we strengthen just team as a in general uh in our companies? And again, you you have a very kind of uh somewhat, I would say, somewhat definitely unique approach, but also some real passion in that. So when we say team to you, Cindy, what comes to where's your mind?
SPEAKER_01:Good question. Okay, well, I really wanted to create a company that was really an authentic, unique, original concept in the salon industry. Um that was a team-based approach. And when I really wanted to do an extension salon, one of the reasons why people don't get hair extensions is because the service itself takes a really long time. It's a long process. One service provider can take six to eight hours doing hair extensions. So I thought, well, what if we did a team approach and we had a team of two or three stylists doing that same service? You could get the service done so much quicker. And that just made sense to me. And so um, we've basically built the whole thing based on a couple of stylists working at a as a team on the clients to make the process go faster. And that's that's basically how we um when we take client appointments at the salon, the main difference between us and another salon that also other salons might say they're team-based, but the way we do it is the client makes an appointment with the salon, not the individual service provider. And then that just requires a lot of communication and notes, and we have to everybody has to do things really consistently and work together as a team, but they are paid as a team, they are not paid individually. So that's how that's how we're able to accomplish that.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. So let's let that sit in for just a second. When we talk about, you know, because I know a lot of people right now are thinking, did I just hear that right? So what we're saying is when they call up to book an appointment, they're not booking with Brett, they're not booking with Michael, they're not booking with Cindy, they're booking with the business.
SPEAKER_01:That's right.
SPEAKER_00:Give me a little bit more about like I hear the concept of it, but give me like run through how that actually works.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Think about it like this. You go to Starbucks, it's your favorite Starbucks, you go there all the time, and you you go in and you say hi and you get your coffee and you love your experience. And the next time you go back, you don't see Joe, the usual barista that serves you. And you're like, oh, what happened to Joe? Oh, well, Joe left. He's working in another coffee shop down the street. Oh, that's too bad. You're gonna miss Joe. But you're not gonna go try to find Joe. You're not gonna take all your business to another coffee shop. No, because you love the place you go, you love the Starbucks for whatever reason. Yes, you might miss the barista, but your coffee is gonna turn out exactly the same, even though the new barista is making your coffee that day. And when you take it a step further and think when you leave a tip, are you leaving a tip for the cashier? Or are you leaving a tip for the girl that made your coffee? Or are you leaving a tip just because you like the experience and the environment of Starbucks? No, you're leaving a tip based on the whole thing. You're not leaving it for just for that one service provider. So I kind of took that whole concept and said, why can't we do that in the salon? Because what devastates a salon owner more than losing their top service providers and losing a service provider that takes business with them, even worse, taking a walkout where several stylists leave at once and take your business and can devastate a salon. So I heard Neil Dukoff say years ago build a company where the clients are loyal to the brand, not the individual service providers. And that just made so much sense to me. And I thought if I ever own a salon again, because I had owned an owned commission of salons before, if I ever open another salon, it's gonna be that concept. So I had that in my mind. And then when I discovered hair extensions, I was like, okay, this is gonna be a thing. We're gonna do a team-based approach, we're gonna pay them as a team, we're gonna have the entire brand supporting this service that we do. And so from the beginning, we just never, we never made appointments based with a certain service provider. And we just, if clients ever ask, we just go, Oh, that's just not how we do it here. Simple. I think it might be difficult. I know it's difficult for a salon that has done things the other way all these years. I can't even imagine what that would be like, switching it. That would probably be really difficult, if not impossible. But when I opened Mermaid, I just opened it that way. And I just said, well, that's just how we do it here. And it's nobody's ever questioned it. That's just our brand. I just created the brand that way.
SPEAKER_02:That is the strongest approach to no compromise that I've ever seen. I mean, I I love it because you know, it's it's such a black and white approach to it. This is what we're gonna do, and this is how we're gonna do it. And it is it's so honest. I mean, there's there's such honesty and authenticity in the approach to, and I have I've I've thought of the Starbucks as an example before, but not to the level that you were saying it, Cindy. I mean, just to think of you come to that brand because that brand impressed you, but then people will go to a brand because they've heard about the brand and they go there and they get connected to one person, but then it blurs the lines between why are you truly there? And the companies, you know, the companies that are very successful with it create the experience. They go beyond just customer service. Customer service is what you expect to receive, hospitality is when you go above and beyond. Your experience is the difference between a roller coaster ride at a local amusement park versus a roller coaster ride at Disney. You know, why would somebody spend what they would at Disney? They had the same roller coaster ride, but they had the experience. And I love how how you put all of that together. And, you know, we've had some wild things happen in the last five or six years, right? And I've heard of companies changing the way in which they might do business because of shutdowns and that type of stuff, but it doesn't seem like that affected you. Is it is that is that am I correct? Is it like you guys just stepped right back into who you were after that and just kept on staying?
SPEAKER_01:You mean after COVID?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I had a pretty devastating situation, just like everybody else. Um, but we landed on our feet. I was able to re completely rehire in my state, in Washington state at least, they were all getting unemployment and they were getting the federal unemployment, and nobody wanted to work in it. I would say I pretty much had a hundred percent turnover within between 2020 and 2021. You know, I mean, we really had to start from scratch team-wise, um, probably just like everybody else. But in 2022, we had a 65% increase in growth. So, I mean, we were able to land on our feet, and I think it's because the brand, the, the brand consistency and and people knew what was out there. And we were able to build it back up. And the same again to keep going back to Starbucks. The salon owner or the Starbucks owner, even if you had 100% walkout, you would just hire more people. Because guess what? People are lined up to want to work at Starbucks. They pay amazing benefits, it's a great place to work. You make really good money. So I it wasn't, I was gonna say it wasn't hard, but I was able to rebuild um and be very successful because I had already had the structure and the brand and the uh consistency and brand awareness in our market.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I love that because you weren't frozen by fear in any way, form, or fashion. You just kept on going. I have that leads me to uh my other question, which is kind of just worked perfectly into it, just segued into it. When it comes to talking to potential staff, somebody that might come to work with you, um, how do you explain to them the difference in working in a true team-based environment versus where they would have been before?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a really good question. I do explain that. And I go into beauty schools and I try to explain this a lot. So you're going to have a choice to make. You're going to want to decide and ask yourself, are you the kind of person that wants to be uh independent, uh independent um uh business owner? Do you want to have create your own brand? Do you have that hustle mentality? Do you want to go out there and build your own thing and not just work at a suite situation, but even a booth rent salon and even to some extent in a commission-based salon? You're gonna be your own person. You're gonna wanna um the salon's gonna tell you to build your own social media, have your own brand, build your own clientele. Is that does that appeal to you? The sky the limit money-wise, does that appeal to you? Great. Tons of people, super successful at that. Or are you the kind of person that really would prefer the stability of a regular paycheck, a hundred percent 401k match and amazing benefits, paid time off, paid 100% paid medical care. I mean, and a really good salary that will be consistent. You'll know you'll be able to make your car payment this month. You don't have to worry about the business being slow. Nobody's gonna tell you to go drum up business because you're not gonna be responsible for growing your own clientele. We have standards, of course, but I'm just I'm not saying that's for everybody, but there are there are different kinds of people in the world. And there are a lot of people that really just want to go to work and go home at night and not take take all the problems of owning your own business home with you, booking the clients, getting paying all the bills, ordering the supplies. You want to do all that? Great, do that. But if you don't, and you just want to have a really great job in a really cool company where everybody's part of the same team with opportunity for growth. I don't know. I I got a pretty good pile of resumes over here.
SPEAKER_00:I love this, and I love for I love the passion, but what really is jumping off the page at me is because I always look for the the fact that, like, all right, well, you know, I always want everything that we do with podcasts at least have a takeaway to say, what did I catch there? What did I learn? Here's my takeaway is when you build a brand, and I'm gonna stay with that word because you've said it a number of times, and it really is so true. When you when you stay, here's what I want to create, here's the business I want to create, here's the brand I want to create. And again, you go to the fact that we're not going to compromise on what that looks like, that is such a powerful, powerful thing. And you've done a great way of showing that that doesn't have to be anything heavy or anything that's uh, I think sometimes when we start talking like this in certain ways, we can think, oh, that I've got to be this heavy-fisted, this and that, and the other. It's like, no, like what you just said is no, we're staying true to who we are, and either you want to be a part of it or you don't. We're not meant to be for everyone, right? But we are looking for this kind of person. And I know, at least for myself right now, I'm already thinking, oh, you know, hey, listen, can I learn to do extensions? Maybe uh moving out west would be a cool, cool move. I don't know. And I gotta partner up, work your way. But I love that, and so I think in a this goes back to even at the beginning when you were just sharing right out of the gate, just that ability. So I think the one thing I just want to point out is for those listening, is this idea of where are you with your brand and how you are loyal to what you wanted to create, or is it or does it move with the sands? You know what I mean? Like, and you know what? Like you just said, like Cindy said, I love that you pointed out, like, no, hey, listen, COVID sucked, kind of devastated us, had a complete turnover, had to go find new. But it was, you know, again, not that that was, as you said, not easy. Wasn't fun, I'm sure. No one's gonna describe that moment as fun, but we didn't compromise what we knew, and here we are. Like I said, the year after, as you're saying, 65% growth and and continued. And and here's where our here's where we are at this point. So I think that's really, really super like really powerful. Um, you know, so you mentioned some. I want to tap into that a little bit. You mentioned the idea of, hey, one of the ways we just reinforce our brand is even through how we book. Uh, and you already kind of talked about that. We don't book for people, we book for. I'm gonna assume basically what you do is I'll describe it this way for those still kind of tuning into that, is that you book as a resource. So, hey, we have this chair or this room or whatever, right? This is what's available, and we don't have the name behind it. We have availability with with this area, this resource where we perform our service. Um, would that be accurate to say it that way?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, in that we will we use Forest. And so at the top of every column, it doesn't have a person's name.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:It just says Team Mermaid. So, and we have a really unique pricing model that's very transparent and very easy and simple for clients to book. So, we sell extensions as a package. So, our most our most commonly booked thing is our classic mermaid, our classic mermaid hair extension package. The booking system knows to book three hours for that. That is for a full head of extensions, and it includes everything. That one price that is listed, include that we advertise to the public. It's 1995. That includes everything. It includes shampooing, putting the hair in, the package they take home to take care of their hair, free follow-up visits, free removal. It's the whole thing. It's very transparent and it's very simple. And it's that's very unique. I know, I know there's a big trend right now in our industry. I don't know what strategies feeling is on it, but the big thing that's out there right now is this whole idea of um parts and labor. I personally hate the parts and labor model. I think that the client doesn't want to hear about how many uh how you're gonna take longer to charge me more. I mean, I just think it just doesn't sit well with me. So again, it all comes back to brand consistency. Know who your target demographic is. Our target client is a woman who has some money to spend on something extra like hair extensions. And guess what she is? She's busy and she does not have eight hours to go sit in a salon and get her hair done. So our brand is about fun, um, energy, a team, a fast approach. It's not fancy. So the difference between that as say, say your knowing your own brand and say your brand is this elegant, luxury spa, then kind of chill with the chill with the crystal chandeliers. Great. Know that that's your brand. It's not, you're not gonna want to rush your client. She wants to spend six to eight hours. Somebody who likes that and relaxing, pampering atmosphere. Go ahead and take eight hours on her. That's not our brand. Our brand is for busy women, regular women that just want more hair. Our tagline is the salon that gives you more hair. So we are just we are not, you know, um, we're just focused on knowing our brand, knowing who we're marketing to, and creating an an environment that's easy and simple for the client to book that appointment.
SPEAKER_02:I love it. I love it too. I love it too. I think what's really awesome about it is you're right. Um, people don't necessarily understand parts and labor. You're getting them into the business side of it, but we can know that we have to spend so much on parts and we know we have labor. But for the client, the client just wants to know, hey, that's all great, but I just want to know how much we want to spend.
SPEAKER_01:How much is it gonna cost? How long is it gonna take? How long are they gonna last?
SPEAKER_02:That's it. That's it. And and we with hair color, we don't tell them it's gonna cost them parts of labor with hair color, you know. And get I know there's a vast difference in pricing and cost there, but that's not something we do there. I wanted to talk on the fact that you have more than one person touching them at the same time. Instead of it being six to eight hours for one single person, you've got a couple hours for multiple people. And does how do you feel that that protects the appointment book better from cancellations and the fact, you know, somebody goes, You wiped out six to seven, six to eight hours on one person because that person canceled or something happened. Do you feel like it protects the appointment book better?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, probably, because um, if Susie's day didn't just get wiped out with her cancellation, she has something else to do. She'll go help out the other columns that are on the books, certainly. Um and also if Susie calls in sick, we don't have to call and cancel that client either. The other, the rest of the team just absorbs it. Well, I would never call a client and cancel an appointment for them because she made an appointment with our business. She didn't make an appointment with her schedule. I mean, that's not gonna ever be beholden to one style of schedule. We are gonna be consistent, and that's how you build trust. Consistency builds trust. So if you make an appointment at nine o'clock, we're not gonna call and tell you, oh, Julie's out sick today, we're gonna have to reschedule for Thursday. That client is gonna find some other salon to go to.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So we want to be consistent, and that's how you build client loyalty.
SPEAKER_00:I love that you bring that up. I bet you, yeah, I mean, something that just hit me too is uh what's so, and I think this just so your approach addresses it so I think easily, but you can correct me if I if I'm off base with this, uh, or I love your your view on it because you're living it and I'm just observing it uh with this conversation. But one of the biggest things that come up, you know, in these last few years, let's say, especially post-COVID, is uh meeting people's needs and their schedules and things like that. And what we keep hearing about is, you know, my joke is there used to be a time where 40 hours was full time, now it's 28 hours, is now become the new full time. But with what you do, you can accommodate. I'm not saying that you how exactly you hire or don't hire, but I would say with this approach, you have a much easier way of being able to accommodate people's needs without sacrificing the business because of it.
SPEAKER_01:100%. You just hit it. Um, one of my stylists just took like three months off to go travel, came right back, plugged them right back into the schedule, no problem, didn't affect anything. In fact, part of our our policies and our team members got is we provide unlimited time off. They get two weeks paid vacation, but they can take unlimited, unpaid time off. I don't care as long as you give us a couple of weeks' notice. You can't come and take the day off. That's that hurts. But but give us the give us as much no as you want. Great. You only want to work two days a week, great. Three days a week doesn't matter. We can make that work. What I don't allow is half days. Um, you kind of need to be here the whole day. I don't care if you only want to work one day a week, but but you can't work like noon to five. I mean, that that doesn't work. Our our appointments all overlap and you have to be here for huddle, or you won't know what's going on if you walk in and halfway through the day. So I am, you know, certain things we have really strict standards on, and other things, you're right. This workforce, more than any time in history that I've been working, it's been a very long time. Uh, yeah, they just really want a lot of flexibility with their time off. They have other things that they want to do. They want to travel, they want to do other things, and that works for our our model.
SPEAKER_02:Michael, that's that's you know, Cindy, in in Incubator, we talk about this. Michael, that's that's the most um almost obvious look at security in the brand. And when you when you're a team member and your concern might be, you know, how am I gonna be how am I gonna create a career? Uh, you know, job versus career, how am I taken care of over time? Um, is this company always gonna be helpful? Uh excuse me, healthy. And they have security in the brand, and then they can step out, step right back in because the brand is so strong. That is that is just the it's the classic, the way it needs to be looked at type of model. Beautiful.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. I love it. I mean, this has really been uh, you know, I mean, it it I'm racking up too many questions than we have time for at this stage of the game. Uh let me ask kind of one, I don't know if be the final question, but as we kind of wind things down, let me ask this. Uh we've got a lot about this whole idea. We really kind of have locked into the importance of, you know, just the brand, the importance of and I think that really what that stems from is you as the business leader, as the business owner, just saying, This is what I believe in, and this is what I want to create. Um, what else? I mean, it might not be something we talked about, might be something completely different, but what other for those that would be listening in, what do you think are like if you had one key or one thing, what's kind of guided you that's kept you like on track?
SPEAKER_01:Um, well, part of it is just the nature of the work that we do. I mean, making women feel good about themselves is really the most amazing thing you can do behind the chair. And what we're doing every day is transformations. Um, I worked in a salon where I was doing men's haircuts 10 a day. You know, that was just like hard work. Transformations on a woman to go with somebody who's had crappy thin hair their whole life and now they've got more hair and they feel prettier and more feminine and more confident. We have a thing we call it hugs and tears. If we can get hugs and tears every day from a client, that is the most satisfying, meaningful, it's just really fulfilling work. So it is, it doesn't, you have that whole aspect of it's just really rewarding and really fulfilling. And um, it really impacts women's confidence in a way that it makes it, it really adds to the culture that that we're doing something important. Um, it's we're not just doing a high-ticket service for fancy people. It's we're really giving women confidence and by giving them more hair. And so there's that whole side of it. That's probably that's probably guides more of what I do every day, more than everything else I talked about. But um, I don't know if that answers your question.
SPEAKER_00:No, it's great. Perfect. Perfect, perfect. So I know there's one, and this seems kind of like a little bit out of left field, but I feel like the need to answer it because I'm sure some people are saying, I wonder how big her team is. Because of doing this, I think people are envisioning maybe the team has to be mammoth or maybe the team's small. And so just how big is your current team, Ross?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a that's a good, that's a good point. Um, while one of our salons um is 10 chairs and the other salon is four chairs. We have about 15 service providers total between the two salons. The way we book is one and a half stylists per column. So I will have two columns open for three service providers. Um, and then that way the the one that uh, you know, somebody can bounce back between the two because we also do some color. So it wouldn't really make sense to book two stylists for somebody doing a root touch up. That you don't really need that. You need someone available to maybe help you blow dry real quick, but um, that that seems to work. We also have an apprenticeship program, so we always have one at least um apprentice on on board at all times who's able to do things like the shampooing, the applying, the um, the assisting with blow drying, the all the behind the scenes stuff that has to happen, like retaping hair extensions, you know, washing them, getting them all ready to go. There's a lot of prep work involved with extensions, setting things up, getting things ready, cleaning up. So um, yeah, it's not a huge team. We're between both felons, we're doing about three million a year for probably yeah, 12 to 15 staff members.
SPEAKER_00:That's good. That's good. That's a great ratio. Yeah, I can I can assure you that's a great ratio. And those listening that are like they've got eight or 10 people are going, that's a really good ratio.
SPEAKER_01:Um well, part of it is you have a high ticket average, you know. Like I mentioned, I did men's haircuts for years and I worked really, really hard for like a$12 ticket average. And I still work really, really hard, but to have a$500 ticket average, yeah, that's that's how you can afford to pay people amazing benefits and have a great environment and take them on trips for education. We're all going to Vegas next weekend for IBS, so that's why I bring that up. But um, you know, you can just you can really just treat people to a much better career, you know, if you can find a way to get to serve those high ticket items.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. I love it. Well, this has been awesome. Brett, any last things in your brain?
SPEAKER_02:I there's I think we need three more podcasts around this because it's a ton in there. And just this has been fantastic. And you know, Cindy had had the pleasure of already meeting you and Mike and And and you know, over the years knowing you and that type of thing, but but this was this was even for me. I was like, oh, I have more questions, you know, you know, and so but this has been fantastic, it's absolutely fantastic.
SPEAKER_00:Uh it's been great. And I'm sure that uh, like said, I'm I'm sure there are many more questions out there, uh, for sure. We can have a lot more conversations. I think I do that at the end of about every podcast, realize we're just scratching surfaces here. Yes, so we definitely will have to cycle back around. But this has been great, Cindy. Thank you for your time and just sharing. Again, to me, it was just sharing the passion and just that, you know, just your view. And I just love your perspective and that, and that just completely that focused on what you want to create, you know, and the business you want to have, and with just that brand and everything that you talked about. So thank you so much for your time today, Cindy. Thank you, Cindy. Great talking to you guys. All right, and thank you to everyone that's listened in today. Uh, of course, we will do this again very soon. So we'll see you at the next podcast. Until then, have a great day.