What To Do When a Stylist Leaves Your Salon

are live. Ladies and gentlemen, we're live. James, I'll let people kind of load into the room. If you're listening on the podcast, just give me a minute while people jump into the live. We do these podcasts live. Not scripted. Off the cuff. And what we're going to chat about today, James, what are we talking about again? What to do when stylists leave your salon? Yeah, this is like one of the hardest things to deal with as a owner. And I think... It's like three or four conversations I had this week. It's only Thursday. It was like one a day. And the problem is, as an owner, you left the salon to open up your own salon. And you created something that you loved that was magical for you that you always wanted. It may not always fit every other person on your team. You try and build it around your team. You try and make sure you create a salon, become the leader that people can trust and people love and you pour your heart. and soul into them and you educate them and this is for the owners who are listening who do everything the right way and there's a lot of ways to do things the right way but you have your one-on-one meetings you pour into your team you you align with core values when you hire them you have a whole onboarding process you give education you give fair commission you give them a career path and a career journey and like you're doing everything you're supposed to be doing and somebody's gonna leave or somebody does leave and it kind of like stabs you in the heart don't take it personal. And it's so much easier to say like to you not to take it personal. You're going to take it personal, but you don't, you shouldn't. It's their decision. It has nothing to do with you if you're doing everything right. And so for a lot of us owners, we start questioning like, what did I do wrong? What could I have done different? If you, if you start losing two people, three people, four people, then you got to reflect on yourself as a leader. But a majority of your team is happy. There's always going to be one person that just needs to move on with their career. And it has nothing to do with what you could have done different. And some people, when they leave, and this was like your ace, like you guys, like you bonded, you brought this person up from hair school. They've been with you for five, six, seven, eight, maybe 10 years. And then they leave you and they leave you in a way that's kind of dirty, that blindsides you and you did not expect. You still can't take it personal. It is what they're dealing with. And the story they're telling themselves about why they should leave. And a lot of times what happens, when people leave that you were really cool with they start making up stories in their head to justify the thing that they did was wrong to make themselves feel better again that has everything to do with them nothing to do with you so i want everyone just to take a second right now and i want you to really list out everything you do for your team and then i want you to take a look at all the things you do and like are these things that you wish you had when you were a stylist and you were coming up in the salon industry and what would you do different If it's nothing, they don't do anything different. Now, if you start losing people, you have to get a grip on what's happening in your salon. Why are people leaving? Is there a toxic person? Is someone planting seeds in somebody's head? Are you still behind the chair so much that you don't have time to water the seeds that you're planting yourself and somebody else is watering your garden with seeds they planted? And so it's really, really important that you, like I'm using the garden example, that you take a look at your garden and you pull the weeds that don't belong. Because if you let them sit in your garden because you're too busy or too lazy to start pulling them, they're going to take over. It's so important that you take some time every single week, not every single day, but every single week you dedicate to leadership. And so I like to break this up. What I teach in the Level Up Academy is typically three days a week for three hours each day. And it could be eight o'clock, nine o'clock, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock in the morning, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And so the three areas of focus for you as an owner is profit. client's team one of these days let's call it friday morning or thursday morning let's pick thursday because that's what i like to do thursday morning is dedicated to the team and that three hour time block that's your open door policy to have your one-on-ones you have all your meetings you do your mini encouragement coaching you do your mini correcting coaching and you have a block of time that nothing else is in that space except for time with your team and if you do that You'll make sure that your client acquisition channels are always optimized. You'll make sure that your leadership and your team channel for communication is being optimized. And then on Monday, when you do your profits, that's being optimized and you're profitable and you're heading in the right direction with your business. The team aspect is what we're going to talk about today. There's a book called The Four Agreements. It's what I use in part of my onboarding process. And The Four Agreements is be impeccable with your word. Don't take anything personal. Don't make assumptions. and always do your best. Now, be impeccable with your word. When you break down the word impeccable, it means to speak without sin. Ultimately, it just means don't gossip. And so you as an owner, if you find yourself venting to your team, which a lot of us do, we're all human, they could take that as gossip if you're venting about another stylist or you're venting about somebody else. Now, never say, I'm so fat, I'm so stupid. Never gossip about yourself. Don't gossip about your team member. If somebody did something in your salon, and you were around other team members, you don't ever bring it up. You only bring up to that person. That's it. You don't vent to your team members about another team member. As an owner, we're all equals. And I don't want to be like, we're no one's higher than anyone else on like the scale of like humanity. And like, we're all equals in life. In your business though, you have to set the standard. You are on a different level. You cannot. Be part of the general population. Unfortunately, it's a really tough pill to swallow, but you're not their friends. You're not here to gossip about anybody else. You have to hold yourself to a higher standard, especially when it comes to your frustrations. And a team member could be frustrating you. And sometimes you're in the back and another one of your styles can be venting about a stylist you have a problem with. Just acknowledge it and think, oh, I'll talk to her about it. Don't side with her. Don't agree with her. I'm going to handle it. When you start getting onto their level and you start venting, that will get back to that stylist. And you may not even know it. So it's important that you just hold yourself to a different standard. And that's be impeccable, your word, right? In a really basic sense. Now, when it comes to don't take anything personal, you can't take anything personal. Like this has nothing to do with you. It has to do with that person, especially when they leave. It's hard for us to not take things personal. The one gift I have. is I do understand that I left salons and I'm always rooted in gratitude. So when somebody leaves my salon, I'm grateful for them to leave for leaving because I know how much I have to give as an owner and I know exactly what I'm going to do for the career. I'm almost upset for that person when they leave because ultimately their career is not going to be better somewhere else. And I feel bad for that person that they got influenced by a boyfriend or a husband or somebody else that they left my salon. I'm willing to bet 99% of people who left my salons made more money at my salon and were probably happier. Now, if they weren't, and I didn't offer something that they wanted because I have a very different structure, I hope they get it where they are. And me as an entrepreneur, I'm rooted in like money. Like I want to make money. That's what I'm here for. I'm here to like really serve my community and do beautiful hair. But that's my leadership language. So as we go into not taking things personal, you may just not be speaking their language of leadership. And unless you do speak everyone's leadership language, and what I mean is like pick the five love languages, like terms of encouragement, like physical touch is one of them, but you're not really touching your team. But we give and receive information five different ways. So get the book called The Five Love Languages. And I tweak that for my lesson I taught in the Love Love Academy called The Five Leadership Languages. It's important that you communicate out of their language because you think you are, let's say you speak in money, right? You love to get bonuses and money because you own a business. And you think paying your team more is going to really make them feel like they're doing a great job when all they want is like a pat on the back and words of encouragement. Hey, Jen, you did a good job, but you never did that. And so they left. You just have to learn that language. And if you're doing everything right and they do leave because there's a better opportunity for them in their own mind, it has nothing to do with you. So don't make it personal. It's just something you have to really just embrace that nothing has anything to do with you personally, has everything to do with that person, what's going on in their life, what seeds were planted in their head, what their boyfriend said, and you can't control it. So give it gratitude that now you're not going to waste another dollar in education for that person and give it gratitude because if they did expose something, like you weren't speaking that person's language, the awesome stylist that you have on your team you're now not going to lose because you're going to break down what exactly happened and what caused that person to leave so it never happens again that person gave you the opportunity and the gift for you to reflect and take a look at how you're showing up as a leader so ultimately switch it give a gratitude now don't make assumptions don't assume that your commission structure needs to change because you're not paying them enough And so what happens is somebody leaves and you take a look at your business and you're making the assumption that everyone's going to leave you now. So now you have to give bonuses and pay everyone more and completely restructure your business. Do not do that. Take a second, like take a breather and take a look at what's happening in your salon. And when you created your structure, whether it's commission, your leadership structure, your onboarding process, all of them, if it worked for the last X amount of years, it may need to be tweaked. It may need to be just kind of revisited again and see how can I improve this. One of the ways to do that is instead of making assumptions about what you need to change, it's called the leadership feedback loop. It's another thing that I teach. It's a series of 12 questions that you give to your team. It allows you to get perspective on how you're showing up as a leader. And so if you're showing up the right way as a leader and they're giving you good feedback, take that feedback and then make your decisions based on what the whole collective is saying to you. Hey, we need more education. That also gives you an opportunity to give them feedback on how they're showing up. don't make assumptions that you are you have a broken business model or you're doing things wrong sometimes you could be doing things right it's just not what that person wants at that time and then always do your best that's the fourth one a lot of us lay awake at night thinking about what we could do different and we think about our business and a lot of owners it's hard like owners like owning a business is one of the hardest things you could do it is probably the the biggest self-development coach you can ever hire is starting a business because you are going to have such highs and lows but if every single day you give it your very best for today you give it a hundred percent of what nick has every day when i go to bed at night and i lay my head on my pillow i go right to sleep because i gave my best my best will change from day to day and so as an owner did you give it your best and if you didn't give your best as an owner why didn't you was it because you were too busy behind the chair worried about your own book What was the reason why you couldn't give it your best? A lot of us who still work behind the chair, you just have no capacity left at the end of the day to actually be a leader. That's why you need days just to lead your team. And they're going to feel like the laziest days on your calendar because you're not doing anything physical with your hands. You're not really transforming anyone's hair. You don't get that dopamine hit when a client looks in the mirror and they love their hair and you change their life. That doesn't really happen. But what it is, is on your leadership days, it's a compounded effect of you communicating with your team, letting them know that you care. Letting them know that, hey, I'm here for you. You're important to me. And the mindset shift that I had to make in my salon was my clients are no longer sitting in these chairs. They're standing behind them. And how am I showing up for them? Am I doing my best to show up for them? And if I'm not, what needs to change about what I'm doing in my business and what I'm doing every single day to make sure that they know I'm showing up for them my very best? And those are your four agreements. It's an amazing book. Don Miguel Ruiz wrote the book. I probably revisit it every year due to read it again this year. And I think if you start with gratitude, like what can I learn about this person leaving? And were they really a good fit? Did I really give it 100% for that person? Did I give up on that person? Was I too busy as an owner correcting other people who were B, I'm sorry, C or D players on my team that I neglected my A player? And so it's really difficult to own a salon, especially when you have five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 12 people, 20 people, 30 people, these 75 team rosters, you need to make sure you have an assistant manager, somebody else helping you fill in the gaps a little bit. And so from the grounded Nick, not like the hard ass Marine Nick, it does hurt and I get it. And I can empathize with you, but you left the salon. I'm going to go back to the beginning. You left someone's salon. you probably left someone's salon who was amazing to you and you left for a reason. It was because you were probably too immature. You were 24 years old. You didn't know any better. You thought the opportunity was better. The grass is always greener. And now looking back on your life, like, wow, I really had it made over there. I'll give you a story for myself. I was 19 years old. I was working for a guy named Rod at Hair Visions. Rod was fucking awesome. He was probably one of the best bosses I ever had. He really did mentor me, whether he passed, God rest his soul. Like I really looked up to him and I think about him all the time. And he gave me an opportunity when I was in hair school. One of the stylists called that sick. He's like, Nick, do you want to do hair today? Yeah, of course I want to do hair today. Like, I'm not here just to assist. I was like six months in hair school. So I wasn't even, I don't think on the senior floor yet, to be honest with you. Did my clients. He thought it was going to be probably like a horror show. Like I was doing this girl's hair and she left. She's like, oh my God, he's the best. I love him. And he's like, holy shit. He's like, this kid's got it. Because my skill wasn't there, right? It was just my personality, my ability. and i think i got that from being a busboy from 13 up until i started doing hair and waiting tables and so he's like nick called me his office he's like you want your chair i was like absolutely like yeah and so i would assist and do hair and i really built up my fundamentals there and my sister worked at a really nice salon a little more luxury hair visions was more like a mom and pop shop uh wasn't a shitty salon it was the quality workers like everyone in there was awesome what they did and i looked at the salon next to my sister's boyfriend at the time. And everyone had like a Mercedes and they wore Louis Vuitton and Gucci was a big spa salon. And my sister was out there like competing salon, which is also very, very luxury. To give you guys reference, if you're watching from New Jersey, it was Deep Esquale. My sister was working there and she went to Salon D. Then she jumped back to Deep Esquale. Salon D is where I went. That was with Armin. Armin was awesome. Another great mentor of mine. And I thought that I could make more money there. And I thought that I was young and dumb, and I was mesmerized by the fancy cars and the fancy clothes. But Rod had my best interest at heart. Not that Armin didn't, but Rod genuinely cared about me. And looking back on my life, I went to the Marine Corps after 9-11, so I wound up leaving Salon D2, worked for a soap opera. My whole 20s was wild. But every time I went back to visit Rod, I always felt like... I made the wrong move. Now looking back, I'm happy with all my decisions I ever made, but I was like, what would be different? And when I think about my life, when I left the salon and I like, when I say left, like on a Saturday after work, you got your paycheck. I was always in a good mood. Like we had like this end of day huddle on a Saturday. I got my paycheck. I got the little envelope of cash and I felt like accomplished for that stage of my life. Like I put in the work, I got paid for it. And I remember those days still vividly. I'm talking, this is 25. years ago 20 almost 28 years ago that's how long i've been doing hair for and i'm like those were some of the happiest moments and so for rod to ever take that personal i remember talking to his wife at his wake and he was really upset that i left like it had nothing to do with rod he did everything that was amazing for me so for you as an owner right now listening you could have done everything amazing for that team member. It was just where they were at at that moment in their life. And so I want you to take a second right now and reflect back on when you left the salon and the things that you were going through when you were 23, 24, 25, 26. And you really don't know shit when you're young. You just don't. You think that the opportunity is going to be better somewhere else, no matter what that person is doing for you. And sometimes it's not. And so for us as owners, take a humble pill and understand that it has nothing to do with you. There's nothing you can do different. like you sometimes you get really frustrated and you want to cry you want to shake things up it's one of the hardest things we have to go through as an owner is to deal with the uh the stylist leaving that you loved and you nurtured and you took from like hair school and you you gave me your clients and you like went through their wedding you might have been in their wedding so that's nothing to do with you so do not take it personal and so whoever needed to hear this today i hope that like something i said made a difference because You could be going through it right now and it could be really, really hard for you. And you could be thinking about shaking up your whole entire business when you don't have to. Now, I'm going to flip the coin over. If you're a shitty owner and a shitty leader and you keep on losing people, I need you to reflect on yourself on what kind of leader you are, because people could be leaving because of you. And so when I say don't take things personal, like you may have to personally reflect in. Are you investing in yourself as a leader? Are you reading the books? Are you reading the books on communication? Are you reading the books on leadership? Are you doing this selfishly for you to grow a business without thinking about your team members? And so anything you do in business needs to be win-win. You have to win and your team has to win. And as long as you go in with that mindset with a win-win attitude and you are winning and your team's winning, you got nothing to worry about. So as a leader, take a look at your commission. Take a look at everything you have going on in your salon. it needs to be win-win take a look at the time you're investing in yourself as a communicator as a leader how are you showing up are you showing up for them or are you selfishly showing up so you could buy another car or buy another short house or you know you are in this industry to make money you own a salon to make money as an owner you put the money out you invested you took the risk you have to make money i'm not saying don't make money but if you focus on your team being as successful as they can be like you focus on their success and pouring into them granted you will lose people here and there but your business will reflect that i promise you so james we're gonna open up the mic for uh for q a russians challenges struggles anything pertaining to this subject is great but you can ask me anything if you want feel free we got we got a couple questions before we get into questions everybody in the chat wish this old man a happy birthday oh thanks guys it's uh nick's birthday today so make sure everybody puts in the chat happy birthday send him a dm no no dms please just tag me something the dms are flooded i appreciate it make sure you wish him a happy birthday he's old uh and uh yeah we got uh jonathan brewer um do you let them work out there two weeks or uh do you cut them loose the same day yeah that's a great question john uh i've let people work out there two weeks before and i've cut people the same day it all depends on how they go about leaving And the feeling I get, I do this completely off feeling and gut feeling. If I feel like they aren't going to cause an issue in my salon, I will let somebody stay. I say nine times out of 10, we're done that day. Not personally, like I'm not mad at you. I will say, hey, I love that you're moving on with your career. I wish you the very best. I want you to take the next two weeks rather than worry about clients. I want you to really. Go to the new salon and I want you to get set up there so you're set up for success. That's all I say. I don't need them going through my booking software. And my team have keys to my salon. They can have access to the booking software. They can pull other clients. I don't care. I don't have a scarcity mindset. That's not why I do it. I do it because I just don't need that energy in my salon because they're going somewhere else. So I do that strictly off emotion and how I feel. I'm a very empathetic person and I know when someone's going to leave my salon. The day they make that decision, I can get a read on them and I know exactly they're going to leave. It might last a couple months, right? And this is me as an owner, maturing as a leader. The day I feel that is the day I have that conversation now. So once you have that feeling and emotion, it's not too late. it could be something you said like i had a client a client i had a stylist of mine i loved her she's great i still love her she's awesome and she i'm not gonna say her name but i made a comment about the way she dressed i was like i don't know you look homeless i don't know if i should give you a dollar or if i should ask you for hair advice and she took it really personal and she knows my personality and i'm a ball buster and then she reached out to a friend of mine for a job not knowing that i know everyone in my 100 mile area to own salons and they called me like nick so-and-so reached out to us and We just wanted to give you a heads up. They were so excited too because they got an application. And I pulled her aside the next day. I'm like, hey, anything you want to tell me? And she told me. She's like, listen, you really hurt my feelings. I'm like, listen, I'm sorry. I won't do that anymore. But we have a standard we're setting here. And I want you to look like somebody who someone would take beauty advice from. I want you to look great. And I only say that for you. I don't want a person to come here and judge the way you look like you're not good at hair because you are great at hair. And so we had the conversation. And long story short, it was time for her to move on. a few months later. But right then and there, I should have known to let her go because I lowered my standard by letting her come in dressed like that because it wasn't her very best. And I avoided the hard conversation that would benefit her career because my inability at the time to have the hard conversation. And so sometimes you think the hard conversation will drive somebody out of your salon. Sometimes it keeps them in your salon because it shows them that you care. All right, James, next question. he got uh layers hair i guess is how you say it can you build a successful salon brand without a physical staff outsourcing to overseas staff what was it this guy gets up and moves around uh can you build a successful salon brand without a physical staff outsourcing to overseas staff i mean like that's a that's a loaded question yeah you can't cut hair like You're talking about your admin staff? 100%. You could build a completely overseas admin staff handling your social media, handling your front desk if you wanted them to, handling your Instagram. You could do that. You can't outsource cutting hair, though, like the physical salon. You can't really outsource leadership either. You need a manager in the salon or someone leading the day-to-day. You can't just have someone on a Zoom call from the Philippines or Bangladesh. So it depends on the context of your question. You 100% could have a completely in-salon team, leadership, everything else. You can outsource the front desk, handling the appointments, communication with clients. That could be outsourced totally. Social media, any kind of advertising, marketing, all that could be outsourced 100%. But when it comes to in-salon, it's impossible. You can't outsource someone from overseas to cut hair. All right, James, next question. James, your mic's off. Thank you. Brandon McAllister, what do you say to her clients when they call asking where she went? Oh, great question. So when a client calls or clients call for the stylist who left the salon or the barber, whoever, I tell them where they went. If I know where they went, like if they leave on good terms or bad, honestly, I don't care good or bad terms. I'll still tell them where they went. I'll give them their phone number. I'll send, like some people can send an email out, say so-and-so is going to the salon. I've shared their post before. of what salon they went to on my instagram when i tell you i don't have a scarcity mindset in the least bit i feel clients really love that the fact that i'm not gatekeeping where they went i just make their life a lot easier by just telling them yeah i just tell them where they went honestly the thing is as an owner build a salon that people want to come to for the salon not just for a particular stylist if you build a really amazing experience in your salon and it's in warm and inviting and you guys deliver on a great service and you have a great product you're putting out the door you're not gonna have to worry about it they're gonna be like i'll go to jen i'll go to barbara i'll go to vanessa i'll go to jessica they'll stay in the salon but i don't wish them ill will like i want them to have a career real quick i'm gonna touch on that if there is real quick if you invest in education so this is this is one of the things about education that comes up too it might be one of the questions so you put out money for education one of the ways i like to do it in my commission tiers i have a tier commission structure out of the commission i hold on to as an owner there's buckets buckets for education buckets for redos buckets for uh ads and then in the education bucket is how i pay for the education if there's not enough in that bucket yet they could cover the difference we can do like a four if we do a 50 50 split like other commissions 50 50. i pay 50 they pay 50. there's a lot of ways around that if you cover a hundred percent of their education like you send this as soon for like five grand in california have some kind of like a contract with them where they have to stay for x amount of time until that's done i'm not sure the legalities or how that's got to get worded but that's how you protect yourself as an owner when you do pay a lot of money in education the best way to do it is have in-house education so you yourself go or you one of your a player leaders hopefully they don't ever leave you They go to the class, come back and teach the rest of the team. That way you're not shelling out cash all the time for the rest of your team. But if you create a little education bucket out of the end of the commission that you're keeping, just use that for the education so you're not chasing people after they leave. Because I still have people that left my salon four years ago that still owe me money for education. If you're watching this, you know who you are. I'm not going to hit you up. I'm just like, you know you owe me money. Whatever. Pay me when you can. We got Marcel Queen. How do you hire stylists? That's a loaded question. I call it the ultimate interview process. So my hiring process is a long, maybe two hour interview. We go over the core values. We go over the position agreement. We go over the organizational chart in my salon. We go over their definition of success in that role as a stylist. I give them my definition of success as an owner. They see my position agreement and they know exactly what I need to do to show up to be successful in my role as an owner, what I'm going to deliver to them. I know what they're going to deliver to me. And that's like phase one. phase two is the first week i want to see how they move around the salon i want to see their energy after week one quick little touch point i go over things i saw that i want to see more of things that might be an issue moving forward so i correct any kind of behavior that needs to get corrected i encourage the behavior i want to see more of then it goes if everything's cool month one month two month three and after month three that's when the full onboarding process is done how i hire them is something called fanatical recruiting it is a lesson in my team section in the uh the salon ceo operating system so though the guys if you're watching right now and you have like no system for onboarding and no system for hiring the level up academy has a 16-week sprint that teaches you as an owner how to get from where you are now to a complete killer of a business owner and so if you're interested in learning how to become a better salon owner how to really run a business not just be a stylist who has a lease me a favor reach out to me on instagram at nick marabella shoot me message like hey i'm interested in i'm ready right just dma the word ready and we'll get to a conversation you could also take an assessment i got a free assessment on my instagram link click that it's a series of 18 questions i believe 18 15 or 18 i forget now and those questions give me enough information and data to do research on your social media on your website i'll give you a whole seo strategy i'll give you a digital strategy for social media i'll take a look at how you speak to your team give you some strategies on that some profit strategies for you and so i'll give you a really cool action plan if you want help executing it then we can talk about what that looks like but yeah if you want to see how you're showing up as an owner go to nickmirabella.com click on the first tab in the menu i believe it's called salon ceo system If you're watching live on Instagram, it's actually linked right in the bottom of the video. Click the link of that video and then fill out those questions and we'll get into a conversation. But don't fill it out. And then when I text you to ask you more questions, don't not answer me because you're a fucking idiot if you do that. I'm literally creating this amazing action plan and you're going to fill it out. It's going to be me talking to you, by the way. It's me. I'm not a robot. It's actually Nick. So don't be that person to fill it out. not talk back like that's stupid you're wasting my time you're wasting your time and that's probably why your salon's failing uh i got sundays with sage how fast do you have to take them off the website if they're leaving that day they're off even if they're gonna stay and do their two weeks they're still off the website gone don't just delete the the page if they have their own dedicated page like i build out a page for each one of my stylists add a redirect in it so it redirects to somebody else so what's going to happen is you have it's called the 301 redirect but google will index the pages on your website on your site map and so that lives somewhere on the internet so someone could be looking for that person that listing may still be on google so when they click on it it will go to a broken page if you just delete it makes you add a redirect that's also something we do in the uh operating system that we install on your salon so don't worry about that uh nick marcel queen said she filled out the application never got a response back she said she's gonna try again i'm texting right now you got a braiding salon marcel it's your your reports right now loaded thank you for reaching out to me again i saw your message about an hour ago and i just was refining the report i think you had a gloss genius website let me know the comments if you have a gloss genius website and not a real website that kind of throws me off because i really need like a dot com like your own website and i'm just kind of reiterating it for you so it's a little more uh It's a little more developed because you have the proper website. Neon Flamingo Club, what if you find out the stylist has been DMing the clients for weeks before quitting? Nothing. What are you going to do? Just have a better experience in your salon. I love this question, by the way. I'm not trying to just shush you off. What do you expect her to do? Just leave and not try and hunt her own food? You know what I'm saying? I don't get mad at them for trying to build a career. It's sneaky. She should have came to you first. I'm going to leave. But she's scared. He's scared. What if they fired me right away? I'm not going to get my clients. This is their livelihood too. Guys, it's tough to own a business. I don't take that personal. In fact, I'll be a little upset if they didn't do that. And that's a completely different outlook on it. Everyone's like, oh, that's behind your back and that's dirty. What do you expect them to do? Not DM their clients? They have to take their, even if I gave them their clients, I expect them to tell them like it's business. I don't take it personal. I just don't. Now if they're doing sneaky shit, like trying to get in my other stylist's ear, but you should leave too, you should leave too. That is like, like that's a whole different, that's something different. When they start gossiping, they start bashing you because they're guilty about leaving. They're trying to make you look bad to make yourself feel better because you have a strong team. Like that's the kind of dirty shit that's dirty. But them just deeming their clients like, hey, just let you know I'm going to be leaving the salon in a couple weeks or a couple months or whatever they're saying to them. Yeah, I expect that. So I don't take that personal. Vanessa Caldwell Park, Google reviews. What if they have her name in them? Do you leave them up or take them down? You can't take them down. You have to appeal them or report them. Keep them up. Who cares? It's still a good review for your salon. It's going to help your salon out. If they call and ask for her, be like, oh, no, she's no longer here, but we have someone who's even better. We have Jen. Joshua Beaumont, what was the most expensive mistake you made when someone left? No, I don't think I ever made an expensive mistake, honestly. When someone left, they just left. I never changed anything when they left. Actually, the most expensive mistake I made before somebody left was not following my intuition. I added like a $60,000 addition onto the salon. and they left like as the day it got finished i built it out because we were getting so busy with so many people and like we had so much overflow that i built out the back room with three more stations three more shampoo bowls and it was like 60 grand i think is what i spent and like the people who i did it for personally like i personally like developed their career they left and opened a suite they're not in the suite anymore but and i want to sell my salons give my salon to uh to one of them i'm so cool with them like this week They have a problem in their business or career. They'll call me. They want a blow dryer. We have the whole warehouse website. Again, I don't take shit personal. It was a $60,000 mistake expanding the salon. But whatever. It's money. I'll make more. Anthony Patrell, how do you talk to the team about it without sounding like you're trash talking? Don't trash talk. Literally, just do nothing. Hey, so-and-so left. I wish you the best of luck. And that's it. Moving forward, we're going to have some overflow of clients. And I think that who, is there any clients that so-and-so had that they stay in the salon you don't want or you do want? We know where to funnel them to. That's all. Like just literally, like nothing ever happened. Now, if there's some kind of a event that caused them to get fired, I don't know, they stole, there's a fight, there's like something you need to address, address it. But if someone just left because they wanted to go and spread their wings somewhere else, That's all. She's no longer here. Never, ever, ever, ever badmouth anyone. I could honestly say through all my years of ownership, I've never badmouthed not one person who left my salon. I don't even badmouthed my old partner who badmouths me. I just don't badmouth people. I think you look like a jerk off when you do that. No, he just talks shit to my face all day. James, I will badmouth to his face. I will never say anything about somebody. to somebody else that I wouldn't say to their face. I just don't like gossip. I hate it. Like if my wife's watching, she'd get pissed because I'm going to bring this up. She'll come home and tell me like, she goes out with the girls and go to dinner and she starts telling me shit. I'm like, oh, did she tell you not to tell anyone? What are you telling me for? She's like, you're my husband. I can tell you anything. I'm like, no, you can't. She told you nobody. That means nobody. I don't want to know, right? So it's like, I just believe in not telling anyone anything. If someone told you not to tell anyone anything, I don't believe in gossip. I just don't like gossip, period. and so you when you start talking about the team member who left like she sucked anyway and like it just does not look good look i don't don't ever bad mouth anybody even if they were a terrible person even if the tox shoot they were so toxic and they left the salon does not matter i do not badmouth them and especially in front of my team uh that's why you got to go to the gym so you get all that frustration of all the you do want to say about that person out you get it out in the gym or go for a run or go punch a punching bag like when you exhaust the body you tame the mind you have to do that if you're if you own a business getting like boxing jiu-jitsu like get your frustration out somehow just so you don't take it out on your team okay joe hogan um uh dusty dahlia studio how do you spot the signs that someone is about to quit before they tell you there's a bunch of red flags They start packing their stuff early. They distance themselves. They do weird shit on their phone. They're making phone calls. They're a little colder to you. You will pick up on it. If you have regular touch points with your team on a consistent basis, you're going to be able to pick up on it. It's easy. 100% you'll be able to pick up on it. But the ref lags is like, they're always quick to bounce, right? They come in, do the work, and they leave. They have extra appointments going on in their schedule because they're going on interviews. Like there's, there's, there's, there will be signs, but you got to go with your, we, by nature in our industry, we're energy beings, right? You could put a hand on the client's shoulder and calm them down. They're going through like a divorce or going through an issue at work or like there's an energy, energy transfer here. And so when you're around that person, but do you believe in this or not? It's true. It's fact. There's, there's an ether, there's an energy, there's a vibration, a frequency, a field, and you could pick up on that. if you're in tune to it but if you're so shot out from doing client after client after client after client and only focused on your business behind the chair you're not going to pick up on it that's why your leadership days are so important james uh i got time for like two more we got two more yeah we got we got two more uh king george power uh hair uh do you like ai for salon changes i i don't understand the context of that question i love ai for everything If it's going to be your psychiatrist to make changes in your salon and run your numbers to if you should add an addition or not, yeah, 100% I love AI for that. AI will hallucinate. We have a running joke at the office with Nick about new AI that comes out, and he'll come in, he'll just mention some, oh, I'm using this, I'm using that, and we're like, what is this? Nick grabs the most efficient AI programs as soon as he can. Yeah, like what I'm building right now is ridiculous. It's out of control. Out of control. All right, James, last question for the day, and then we're going to pop off. I got a community call in a little bit. Bold Heritage Beauty Lounge. How do you deal with teaching stylists your unique way of doing a specific style, and they leave and take your knowledge on their own, and they're giving their own booking site to my clients? Be better than them. Here's the fun part. I do love this question, and I know it hurts. You taught them your technique. They're not going to do it like you. They're just not. And here's the thing. When they try and do it like you and how you taught them on a client who you need to tweak it for, they're not gonna know the basic fundamentals of how you created that technique to evolve it. So they're always gonna be stuck. They're always gonna be a watered down version of you. So I would not worry about that. If they're DMing your clients, don't worry about it. Just do a better job. It allows you to create space for better clients anyway. It's like this. If Bobby Flay opened a restaurant, next door to me here, and I bought Bobby's Flay cookbook. Can I open a restaurant and compete with Bobby Flay? Probably not, because I bought his cookbook. He's going to evolve those recipes. No one's opening a restaurant across the street from a chef who has a cookbook about all his recipes. It's not going to taste the same. If you're Italian and your grandma makes sauce or gravy, whatever you want to call it on a Sunday, her recipe could be written down in her handwriting on a piece of paper, but you're never going to duplicate her sauce, her gravy. It's sauce. It's gravy, but so it's, it's just not going to happen. So don't be scared of that. I always, I never focus on the negative. I only focus on the positive. I don't let myself worry because I don't have a scarcity mindset. I don't care about them leaving. It's taking time away from you from being a better version of yourself. All that mental thinking and worrying about what happened. Oh, she takes my client. She's texting them. That's time away from you refining your skill to make it even better. So yeah, it's easier said than done. Take a day, get pissed, go to the gym, but you're better than that. Like, don't worry about it. If she's deeming your clients, I would laugh at it. Your clients know you're awesome. They know you're better than her. You taught her. Now, if you let yourself slip and she got better than you, then you got problems. But you should have an arsenal of team members behind you that are all just killers, getting better and better and better. It just happens, guys. The Yankees won the World Series for like five years in a row and they lost. There's always champions. There's always second place. Like you can't be the champion forever. It's going to happen one day. You're going to get dethroned. Sorry, evolution. That's why you have to build a team around you. And then you and your team are no match for that one person who left. I promise you. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that is it. If you are interested in expanding your salon, growing your salon, really developing into a CEO. really owning a business that is worth something do me a favor go to my instagram go click the link in the bio and uh fill out the assessment i'll give you a really great action plan for you to take action on and and get to the next level if you feel like it's a good fit and you want some help executing it then we'll get into a conversation see if i can do that you guys are amazing thank you for watching and james we are out

Losing a stylist hurts. Losing two or three at the same time can feel like your business is falling apart.

It's not.

In this live, Nick Mirabella breaks down exactly what to do when a stylist walks out of your salon. Whether it's one key player or half your team, there's a playbook for this. Nick covers how to protect your revenue, keep your clients from following them out the door, and rebuild stronger than before.

Here's what you'll learn:
- The first 3 things to do the day a stylist leaves
- How to communicate with clients so they stay with your salon
- Why losing stylists can actually be the best thing for your business
- How to recruit and attract better talent fast
- The systems that prevent this from destroying your revenue

If you own a salon and you're dealing with this right now, or you want to be ready when it happens, this is the one to watch.

Nick Mirabella is the founder of The Level Up Academy, a coaching program built to help salon owners grow their business, build real teams, and stop depending on any single stylist to keep the lights on.

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📩 Ready to level up your salon? Learn more about The Level Up Academy: [INSERT LINK]

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