How to Build a Thriving Salon Business | Eden Organics

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Co-Owner Code, How to Build a Thriving Business. I'm Andrea Miller from DaySmart, and I'll be your host. Whether you're a salon owner, a spa or body art professional, an artist dreaming of launching your own space, or navigating the delicate dance of co-ownership, this session is for you. Today's guests are Pamela and Gino Benson, the co-owners behind Eden Organics, one of the most respected salons in the region. Their organic salon has built a loyal clientele, survived a recession, and continues to thrive 15 years later by staying true to their values and each other. They've built this business together as spouses, business partners, and innovators in the wellness space. You'll hear the exact steps they took to build trust with clients, how they pivoted their business model during a personal health crisis, and what it really takes to maintain a thriving partnership professionally and personally. By the end of this session, you'll walk away with real-world strategies for thriving in a co-owned business, tips for dominating your niche and attracting loyal clients, and future-proofing your business with resilient, client-first values. So let's meet our two powerhouse guests. Pamela is the heart of Eden Organics. She brings a deeply nurturing, client-centered approach that's earned the slons a near cult following. Welcome, Pamela. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having us. We really appreciate the invitation. Absolutely. And Gino is the visionary. He's a master colorist and growth-minded leader who's always thinking two steps ahead. Welcome, Gino. Thank you. Glad to be here. We appreciate you guys. So together, they're an unstoppable team with powerful insights on how to grow a business without sacrificing your relationship, your health, or your values. So again, thank you both for joining and let's get started. We're going to start with talking about the power of partnership. So let's dive into the foundation of it all, your partnership. So what do you think makes a business partnership thrive, especially when you're also married? Well, I think for us, it's recognizing the differences and Pam and I have very different ways of looking at business and letting those become the asset not a liability and for me it's um the first word that pops up is patience it takes a lot of patience and i think just a heartfelt respect for one another and just trusting that and that word trust kept coming up too like trusting irregardless of how things go you know that you're on the same team and you have each other's best intention because you tend to forget that sometimes. Oh, absolutely. And I mean, not only are you guys married, there's a lot of business co-ownerships where they're not married. I think married even could bring on some of its own challenges in itself and the trust and everything you said is so important. So when it comes to disagreements then, like how do you handle disagreements and major decisions together? Well, the funniest thing I could come up with actually You know, always says that I'm always right. So we go on that premise and it's just a joke because I think that, you know, if it, how do we handle it? I think we just allow each other to kind of have our own space, so to speak, to make the decisions that are best for the business, best for the marriage, you know. I think Pam is much more cautious in her approach to business. I'm much more, let's just do it and see what happens. And one of the ways that we've dealt with it or I've dealt with it is I have to prove to Pam financially on paper if it works. And it's an exercise that I didn't do much in the beginning, which did get us into some pickles. But now by trying to, I feel like she's the hardest sell for me. So if I can do that, then it's a go. If not, we have to wait. Well, and so from what you guys are telling me, it sounds like you each play very different roles. And I know I explained that in the beginning as well. but so explain to us a little more pamela when you say you have to show everything in on paper um explain your roles and really what each of you own as far as managing your business that i think that would be interesting just to understand so my role uh even though i've been licensed behind the chair has really kind of shifted to more of a um i'm the person that you know keeps the finances you know can can see what's going on with the business I'm the one that talks to the clients I have a lot of interaction with them the new ones especially getting them into our location so that's that has kind of over the years evolved and me not being behind the chair as much to take more of the management part of the business where Gino's more hands-on behind the chair with the client. And I did order products for a while, but we've kind of shifted that. So it's almost like we have a state of almost assessing what's necessary at different points in time, like what's going on in our life and adjusting to what the need is. Yeah. You know, go ahead with your role. I think that's, fair enough we've evolved through it but um at the core i think i have a lot of crazy ideas that i want that i want to do and some of them are valid some of them aren't and the proof is usually if pam can see the validity and i can prove it to her then we go ahead we've just gone through that exercise recently for a new salon that we're going to open yeah and that seems to be for us now the the most grounded way to move forward. Yeah. Well, and I think it's on your new salon. I apologize. I just caught that. Hopefully we'll be able to show you that process too, you know, so I'm sure that whoever's on would love to see how it goes from we're building out to, I mean, we'll go through the whole process step-by-step. Oh, fabulous. It'd be a fun thing to share with people for sure well it really sounds like you guys have a solid uh partnership relationship marriage i was going to ask if there's any non-negotiables but earlier you said whatever pam says goes so i assume that whether it's true or not i assume that's the answer to that question so short and simple yeah pretty much yeah and as far as partnership goes and probably even your team i've heard this quote during your interviews and i've heard you guys say there's plenty for everybody and i just with that mindset can you expand on how that mindset shaped your growth um overall this is your whole business partnership your team absolutely yeah yeah one of the things that i teach my kids is that optimism is a great strategy for life so i tend to look at things with uh in that way so there's a lot in in the industry that i've seen where people feel like oh you took my employee or this happened or that and it's kind of like this idea that there's not enough uh my experience is that there's always been plenty if you just focus on your business you do business the way you want they'll be the right people that come along work for you the right people that come along that want to experience your service by by doing that it keeps that feeling of like i gotta i've gotta scrap for what i'm getting and just let you just do your job i love that oh go ahead so sorry yep sometimes i visually think you know it's kind of of like clenching your fists, you know, when you want to hold on, or just opening them up and like allowing things to flow your way. And we've found over the years, it's much easier just to allow things to come our way. But it took time. We weren't, you know, I mean, when we were brand new at this boy, you know, if somebody could have told us what we're sharing right now, I don't know that we would have listened. But, you know, I think it would have made a world of difference to have somebody share what they went through so maybe you could just skip some of our steps you know i think there's no formula really the formula is what you uh what's right for you that's a formula and that seems to evolve over time uh we are in a much better place financially now than when i first started doing hair where i would do eight dollar haircuts and do whatever i could to build my clientele. It's, it evolves. And so you evolve with it. Yeah. Yes. Oh, I love that. And one of the things we talk about here at day smart as well, a lot is just defining your own culture, being who you are in your business and, and they'll come to you, which is so true. And that's everything you guys just said. So I, I love that advice. It's, it's very true. One of my most favorite quotes is be yourself. Everyone else has already taken. And I do. Yeah, if you just do that and the right people come along, the right fit comes along. So let's move on to talking about reinventing your business and yourself. So you guys pivoted to a fully organic salon before it was even trendy. So and for deeply personal reasons. So I want to talk about this reinvention and kind of dig into that a little bit. And I believe this may have started with, and you guys can share the story, but Gino possibly had some health challenges that shaped the direction of these decisions. So share this story with us. It's funny because Gino and I were last night talking about this and we have completely different perspectives on this, but we'll share them because they're both very valid and important, I think. And so Gino would come home from work and his hands were cracked and dry and like broken open and they were bad, you know, and he put cream on them. And I mean, he would do whatever it took and it was contact dermatitis and he had gone to the doctor and there were some things that needed to be changed um so of course you know we usually jump in and um we did changes diet which which definitely helped um but then i came across it was organic color systems right gino um a brand that was just as new into the organic colors uh line and and i did a lot of research on it but but they looked like something that we could use on ours. So we ordered some, and I'll let Gino take it from there. So I did have contact dermatitis. However, I hired assistants to help me at that point in time, and that was getting better. The interesting thing that we've learned from that is that contact dermatitis is a whole body experience. So I tried some functional medicine doctors. they had it handled within about three weeks and opened my eyes up although we were always health-minded to how much more there is to this world than we're thinking about so organic was just part of that at that point in time even though I resisted it I thought this stuff didn't work so I kept saying well I don't think it's worth it blah blah blah anyway I tried it it worked and then we got into it and realized okay uh it's good for us but i think it's also good for people it's the best we can give to our clients and that was one of our um things that we always strive for is what's best for the client so even though it was my hands and other things we realized clients made like this and it was unknown and I had to learn to work with it kind of was a more of a learning curve for me because I I've been doing color for a long time in one way so when we finally cleared that it was amazing that response and I'll add one thing to that is that it's also important not only for our clients but it's important for us because without us there's no clients so if Gino's hands are somebody else's client you're saying yeah but Gino's hands had they knocked it up I would tell you to this day he would not be doing what he's doing now so you know I think that they're there it's so important how we take care of ourselves first and foremost because if we're not healthy physically or mentally or however you spiritually however you want to look at it we're not that great for the client so that's my team well and let's i'm so glad you guys figured all of that out and found this product let's talk about the reinvention piece of it um because a lot of our listeners they may have a different sort of health issue or a different sort of situation they're trying to resolve and needing to consider reinventing themselves as well so what did it look like in the process introducing it to your to your clients or just making that change um what what was that like i would say it wasn't difficult at all because when you believe in something like you when you truly believe in something and i truly believe in good health and a good mental state and a good physical i mean when you believe in it it's not hard to sell to your clients because you're not really selling you're just saying hey this is a product that is going to be beneficial for your health you know long term like they they don't even and gino's following has been so loyal to him it's like he just says the word and they they jump i wish that were true but i i think the proof of the pudding you have to make sure that it works yeah uh one of the uh but they were you know it transformed our client base it really did and it coincided with probably one of the worst recessions we've ever gone through so the shift even though it was rough in that time actually gave uh it gave me some momentum to do something new uh i don't you know tough times are always a catalyst for change if you make the right change during those time you'll you'll wind up on the other side even better so it just kind of all went together at that time that just happened to be around the time that we were we were having one of the worst financial times ever yeah yeah yeah well and i assumed then i mean there was probably an untapped market uh you were looking at others with auto immune conditions and things that now you have this product line that you can now welcome them into your into your salon and and especially with hair color um you know possibly they can find a product line that they're able to use as well so i yeah yeah on that on that um i just a story popped into my head that I'd like to share really quick because it was one of the reasons that I just really wanted to focus on the best product out there for us and our clients. And it was an article I read in a medical journal of all things. I don't read medical journals, they've popped up but it was about these doctors that had written about the way they were beginning to apply medications to the elderly. And it went on to say about how there are more open, more pores in the top of our heads and the bottom of our feet than any other place on our body. And so the absorption rate was, I forget, it was like, I don't know, like 80% quicker because it didn't have to filter through the intestinal tract. It goes right into the bloodstream. So they were giving these people medications and finding that they were getting better because they were able to absorb the medication. So it made me think, oh, my gosh, so what we put on our head is getting absorbed straight into the bloodstream. And if that's the case, we should really care about what it is we're putting on our head. So that was that was one of the things that was like a light bulb. It's like, OK, come on, let's you know, if doctors see this and they're doing this with medications, why our industry needs to see this, you know, so we ourselves and others. Oh, I agree. Oh, for how long hair color sits on your scalp. My goodness. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in one, I like to highlight quotes that I've heard, like not verbatim, but things that you guys have said, and you've said that reinvention starts by listening, which you've obviously mentioned, but both to your clients and your own body, which is very powerful. Can you give an example of when you had to evolve or risk falling behind when reinventing or anything like that? Was there ever a moment where you risked falling behind from decisions that you were making? What do you mean by falling behind? Was there, where it wasn't, I'm sorry, you shouldn't say falling behind. That's just the way the question was worded for me. During your evolving, like was there a moment where it just wasn't working or you struggled during this reinvention stage? Did you have any fallback, setbacks, or just everything fell into place very easily? Because I think it'd be interesting as well when reinventing yourself, you said everything happened very easily. Just to share if there was any hiccups along the way, customers that maybe don't like organic product lines or any stories like that as well where you had to get through those challenges during that reinvention stage? Well, nothing, everything in retrospect seems really easy, but it was bumpy. The, I mean, this surprise was how many people actually responded to, and this was sort of a weird serendipitous kind of thing. We had sold one of our salons it was called east of eden and like the guy that we sold it to couldn't afford to change the name so we said you can have the name for three years clients kept going back and forth getting the locations wrong so we decided to change our name to eden organics and that name was so powerful for bringing new clients it was it was as if we had planned it except it was just the way it happened and so that particular event actually made the organic business for us huge we didn't even realize it was just the change of the name that was that's all it was so in the in that sense it was easy but there was a little bit of history before it that wasn't so I just maybe kind of the snapshot. Oh, yeah. I would say what comes to mind is the ones that challenge you on organics and say things like, I don't think that makes any difference. So you always have the naysayers. I think that if there was any difficulty in that, at that point our lives we have been through so many difficulties that anything smooth was like wonderful so the transition seemed like it was just supposed to be you know we just were supposed to take that path and i don't even think we realized yeah it just sort of changed on its own yeah and it was i i always thought it was just the accident of having to change the name that went on the internet and somehow with aiding with you know clients giving good testimonials that people would do that after their service and that name seemed to be the catalyst for making the business go much easier than ever done before actually i always think sometimes when your purpose is really clear or it's clarified things move quicker yeah fall into place the way they should yeah yeah yeah yeah and you have to be okay with bumps you know yeah but they're all a part of the process absolutely well yeah this is all very inspiring especially i mean the these are challenges business owners face every day whether it's exact or something similar um so i i want to lead into now just future proofing your business and um word of mouth you guys have really built your business you built a loyal following um without big marketing campaigns um and your word of mouth uh you know the word of mouth for clients and building your clientele is really the way you've done this is really next level so i really want to understand a little bit more about that and let our audience hear more about that so with all this reinvention everything you've told us thus far and now it's just getting those clients in building that loyal base what's your secret to turning first-time clients into lifelong advocates i think you're giving the best service you can that includes organic products uh you um my way is i tried to connect with them during the consultation and just we keep that stream going with each visit uh i mean it's just it's really not a technical thing it's just what i like to do and after a while you feel like you have a whole clientele of friends because you get to know each other and a thing that i i heard years ago and i don't know if it's true most people will leave their hairdresser not because they don't technically do their job well but because they don't feel cared for that's interesting it's actually i think that's probably really true we have a kind of a standard joke where you know gina always felt like his services were like just mediocre but it's who he was i mean he does really good color but it was it's like who he is and how he presents himself that i think they just they do he makes people feel like they're his best friend you know which is a gift it's a real gift so i think that But, you know, with that gift, he was the one that built a clientele. I mean, his clientele was built in six months, which blew my mind. Because when you're first starting out, you know, it takes a while. Those are two separate. In fact, in our business, it seems like that's one of the things is, you know, you start out doing hair and you're a hairdresser and you learn those skills. but building a clientele is a whole different skill set it has nothing to do with how good you are at hair which is an interesting thing in and of itself so one of my i used to speak sometimes in groups i would say i felt so i liked my clients so much and i wanted to please them so badly that i actually learned how to do their hair and it's a joke and but it really was part of the truth is you got to learn about each individual client and what they want and that takes take some focus and i will say just you know our audience we got a true with exclamation point on that one so we our audience is definitely agreeing with you guys on this as well and i'm just going to pause here too i wanted to let the audience know there is a chat option within here where you can chat in some questions i will open up for q a at the end um but i just wanted to let let you know, feel free to start sharing your questions now. And I can ask them if need be during that time. And I will open up at the end, not to interrupt that. Sorry, I just forgotten. I wanted to let everyone know. But having said that, and just making clients feel, you know, obviously, like they're the only person that exists when they're in your chair, giving them all that wonderful attention. Let's talk about nightmare clients, because you've been in the industry long enough that you probably have some advice to share with others. Like, what do you do with those nightmare clients and you're trying to offer that wonderful customer service and make them feel very valuable and give them that great experience and how do you know when it's time to possibly even fire one of those nightmare clients yeah well gino and i were thinking of a client in particular that he had done for a very long time and um and he had basically asked her to go once and then she begged her way back in and and we allowed it and and then we had to do it again a second time um it's you know it's as you go through life you get to we look at it like or i'm going to say i look at it like every human being is valuable and so that word you know hiring is so harsh to me um and so you try to do it and and you know there's someone out there for them too it just doesn't happen to be us you know because there's just a disconnect and so i think that um yeah they're difficult but we don't understand what might be going on in their life that they're acting like they are but we always have the choice right to say hey you know this isn't working out and I'm going to either refer you although I don't know that I do that either if they're that difficult but you know um but it just isn't working out and you're going to need to to find somebody else so that's like the the most gentle way that we know of to to let somebody know now we've gotten to a point um that it's when I'm on the phone like with a new client our clientele right now is just wonderful. I think we can say that we've kind of gotten to a place where we really enjoy them, you know, and there's not much difficulty in the clients that we have. But I also, when I'm on the phone interviewing a new client or talking to them about their needs, I can sense now after all these years, if someone doesn't fit and then I'll gently guide them as much as I can to somewhere else. Because it just, I can tell it's not going to be a long, a good long-term thing. So to the point where one time I did that and she actually wrote a bad review on us because she felt like I was, I was offing her and I was in it, but I, I wasn't going to be like, I tried to be kind about it. I didn't know what else to do, but I was kind of shocked, you know? So anyway, like I getting a bad review is devastating to some, to a lot of, um, Silas, how did you manage that? Did you just let it go? You knew you were getting enough good reviews. Did you reach out? Yeah, no, I actually called her, but she didn't pick up. She didn't pick up. And I just said again what I said, I just don't believe you're a good fit for what we're doing. Well, she insisted it was. So then it's one of those, okay, what are we going to do here? You know, we're just like this. And then the more we did, the more she kind of came back, the more I thought, oh, you really are not a good fit. You know, I can confirm it. Yeah. This is Googling itself. Yeah. So what I did, I went on the review and I explained that we're not for everybody. And unfortunately, this was the situation. So hopefully, to me, I used to just cringe at bad reviews. And sometimes I think, you know, it just makes you look human. It tells your audience that you're not perfect. We're not here to be perfect. We're here to learn, right? And grow. so you know the bad reviews i don't want a lot of them trust me but yeah you know sometimes sometimes they're a good wake-up call for gino too you know like hey what are we doing you know what's going on here yeah i i you know just to answer that for myself i'm i don't like the word firing clients i don't even like the term you know uh i mean sometimes it's just not right anymore but you know I'm very reluctant because clients matter I mean they pay your bills so if if they're they have to really be nudges or to you know let them let it go but so I'm very patient with everyone very rarely have I just let it go and said you know this isn't working yeah but it's It's good to hear that you guys are standing up for yourself. I don't want to say standing up for yourselves, but that you are taking the initiative if something's not right. I think a lot of us are scared in the industry to do that when we have clients that are hard to manage, and we're trying to give that excellent service. So it's inspiring to see you can gently do that. Some advice from you guys on how to word it, if need be. Yeah. And the wording is just really simple. It's just not a good fit. It's not a good match. I let a client go that had been with me for about 10 years. Yeah. And I wrote her a letter explaining it because she couldn't believe that I just didn't want to do her hair anymore. And I annotated the time. I thanked her for being my client for that long. It doesn't need to be harsh or mean or a big drama. Sometimes it's just the time's passed. You're done. Yeah. I think the other thing too is like understanding you can only give the message how it's received. You can't control. Right. But we can control what we say. So you have to think about it. Sometimes, you know, sometimes that takes me a few days and I won't respond right away. If there's something that's, you know, comes in that it's like, I need time to think about this before I respond. So, you know, I think part of it is kind of slow ourselves down a little bit, you know, as they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. Sometimes it's okay to take our time to think about how we want to respond, you know, in the best way. Oh, yeah. I was just going to say this all kind of ties together with our, well, building word of mouth. You guys are building the clientele that you want. You want those specific people to talk about you and bring those people in, which ultimately defines your culture and the type of business that you you want to own. I do because due to time, I'm going to skip on to the next and last section I really wanted to talk about is mindset and resilience. So not to skip over the rest of that, but that I think that the topic of firing clients is so huge. So thank you so much for the advice there with that. But I want to talk about one thing I think a lot of us want to hear, too, is you open your business before 2008, before the 2008 recession and came out stronger. So tell us about this. Tell us about that journey and the toughest moment. And how did you get through it? How did you open a business during a recession? We really want to know. things happen that are out of your control. I think 2008 was a prime indicator of that. And it's what you do with it. How do you sit with it? And, you know, it was, I won't tell you that it was the most pleasant of times, but I remember just saying to myself, I'm going to get up every morning, do the best I can. This isn't going to define me. This isn't permanent. Here's the better day ahead. that was just the way I got through it and all of a sudden it was no more clouds and more sunshine showing up and things got better because inevitably with any bad time you're going to learn some lessons and stay awake through it so you can come out the other side a little bit stronger but if you do a woe me oh my god things are really bad I don't know where the clients are going you're going to make it even worse on yourself. Circumstances are going to show up where you've got to make a decision. And why not just decide that things are going to get better? So truly this mindset is what drove you guys through that recession? Just the attitude. You just get up every morning and you put your clothes on and you just go through and you get through that day, whatever you need to do to get through that day. and yeah it was it was tough it was really tough fear fear will creep in there but i you know you after a while you're around enough and you're you can not let the worst of you get carried away and just keep doing the best job you possibly can yeah every moment and that's we were fortunate really that we had at the same time we uncovered something that people were looking for which is organic products yeah and that launched us in a new direction a better direction and now it feels like this will be it yeah for the rest of you know our business yeah and i feel like on just to make things more tangible gino and i had a salon and then we opened up another 4 000 square foot salon now this is all right before the recession oh my god and so it was almost like a house of i guess bricks you know and you one got pulled and then the whole thing started to and it was probably the most on one hand challenging on the other hand um when you do the high insight it's like how did we get through that right and you just we have kids so i think for me i was telling gino last night our kids were my focus. I didn't want them to be affected by maybe some, some poor decisions. That's the way I looked at it at the time that we made. And, and so, you know, you just find a purpose, you know, to get off and get and, and deal with that day. Cause some days that's all I could take. And, and I would watch him. That was inspiring to me. Cause he just, he just like, it's like failure doesn't exist in his world you know he gets up he just goes in he does his job and he comes home not that it wasn't rough on him too but it was it was like I would look to him a lot thinking okay all right we can do this we can do it and get through this so yeah and and and you learn like you like what could we have done differently I don't know you could have done anything differently. You know, it was, I mean, hindsight's always 20, 20, isn't it? But sometimes I think you're handed things in life for a reason. And that reason is to, for growth, to learn, to all kinds of reasons. And as a result, where we're at now is like, I would have never thought being back then that we would be where we're at now. So it all turned around even better than I think, you know or i could have imagined so i think every catalyst for good change if you let it be that way but sometimes you know getting stuck is when you get scared and get immobilized and then there you really stop yourself from moving forward and that's such a great i see there's questions here should we yeah i was just gonna say i was just gonna hop in and ask those yeah i you guys can see those as well i um thought that was just on my side so let's hop in yeah because we've gone through that. So I love this though. The mind it's really mindset, you know, you can do anything. And yeah, I just think that's wonderful. So we do have a question that came in. She says, I've worked with organic product for over 12 years, my entire career, basically. What was your best method of showcasing to potential and current clients, your product as an important factor in your salon and services quality? So I, what we, we believe in health and beauty, our tagline is health and beauty and balance that's what it is so we believe in it so whenever we made a conscious effort in our salons to have health books not magazines like a lot of things that relate to health and and one of the things that salons can do practically for their clients health is to use the products that are best for them. Now showcasing has just been through having clients started. Now I have the benefit of having been in the business 30 some years. You've been doing it for 12 years. I would say stay with it and make sure that clients understand that it's the healthiest thing for them, period. The beauty is part of it, but you don't have to get sick over it and organic products are better for that i think that answers oh i was going to say one thing i picked to remind too is what pam said earlier with the amount of um pores i mean just the education side of it all you know educating your customers is what i'm picking up from you guys but you really i'm gonna think about that all day now pam that you said that but that's great advice gino and then just backing up to like just educating them i think that that's very interesting you know that's the bit i tell my clients i've always like my idea is to give you the best i got yeah this is the best i got now yeah and we're constantly evolving too so if anything we're into we and especially gino will share with our clients the next thing we know they're into it as well so and most of it is about health and healthy you know hair healthy scalp you know healthy feet all those things that we can create that type of business in our environment you know that's the beauty of what we do it's just there's no limits really yeah yeah well you guys have been amazing we have we don't have a lot of other questions coming in but we are almost at time but I really think this is just an incredible conversation. I cannot thank you both enough for joining us. Your honesty, your humor, and so much wisdom you guys have brought to us today with topics that none of us really like to have to address or think about, but are part of managing our business every day. So thank you so much. And thank you for having us. Yeah, it's our pleasure. Absolutely. And I just want to recap really quick. You know, what we've learned today from talking with you guys is just treating every client like they're your only client, creates loyalty. A successful co-ownership rests completely on strengths and honest communication. And reinvention isn't just a business strategy, it's a mindset. And then word of mouth marketing still works when it's backed by trust and care. So you don't always have to market. You can really just work on word of mouth. of mouth when you're treating your clients with trust and care. So thank you so much. You guys have been amazing. And for those of you listening in, we will send out the recording to everyone. Watch for that follow-up email. There is a link on the webinar today for those of you that are not DaySmart customers. We are offering the link in here so that you can schedule a demo with one of our professional consultants and see if DaySmart software is right for you. And then again, if you need anything, please feel free to reach out to our sales or support team for existing customers. And thank you again all for joining today. We've really enjoyed this conversation.

The average salon lasts just 3 to 5 years. Eden Organics Salon & Sanctuary in San Diego has been thriving for over 30. So, what's the secret?

In this exclusive webinar, co-owners Pamela and Gino Benson pull back the curtain on the partnership, mindset, and non-negotiable lessons that have kept their salon growing for three decades, and what they wish every salon owner knew before going into business with a partner.

Pamela is the heart behind the chair. Gino is the big-picture visionary. Together, they've built something most salon owners only dream of and they're sharing exactly how they did it.

Discover co-owner strategies straight from real salon owners who've cracked the code on running a more efficient, more profitable beauty business powered by DaySmart Salon management software. If you're a salon owner, stylist, barber, or nail tech looking to grow your salon business, or you're thinking about going into business with a partner, this is the video for you.

💡 Watch to learn:
• How to build a thriving co-ownership that plays to each partner's strengths
• The 4 non-negotiable lessons from 30+ years behind the chair
• How to navigate growth, burnout, and the business of beauty as a team
• Salon scheduling, client management, and operations tips that keep a long-standing business running smoothly
• How Pamela and Gino use DaySmart Salon to streamline daily operations and stay focused on what matters
• What it really takes to outlast the odds and build a salon that stands the test of time

00:00 Introduction
02:08 What makes a business partnership thrive? 
03:11 How do you handle disagreements and major decisions together? 
04:41 Rolls and what each Co-Owner “owns” within the business 
07:26 How mindset shaped their growth 
10:12 Reinventing their business and going organic 
14:29 What did it look like introducing organic to your business/ clients? 
18:33 Can you give an example of when you had to evolve or risk falling behind? 
22:51 What’s your secret for turning new clients into lifelong advocates? 
25:59 What do you do about nightmare clients? 
28:52 How do you navigate getting a bad review? 
33:03 Getting through the 2008 recession stronger than ever
38:03 Live Q&A: what was your best method of showcasing to potential and current clients your organic product as an important factor in your salon and services quality? 
40:27 Recap and closing  

DaySmart Salon gives you powerful, easy-to-use salon software to help with: 
✔️ Appointment scheduling 
✔️ Client management 
✔️ Payments & POS 
✔️ Salon marketing 
✔️ Business growth & reporting

Whether you're working solo or running a full team, you deserve smart tools that support your journey from the chair to the checkout.


👇 Perfect for:
• Salon co-owners and business partners looking to grow together
• Salon owners ready to work smarter, not harder
• Stylists, barbers, and nail techs building their client base
• Anyone managing appointments and growing a salon business
• Beauty professionals learning from real salon owners who've been where you are

✨ Resources 
Try us for Free: https://tinyurl.com/2vn9ft4s 
Learn More: https://tinyurl.com/jcmejchy
 
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