Why Your Clients ‘Love You’… But Never Come Back (And How to Fix It)

Why do clients leave when they say they love you? All of a sudden, your client's happy, but they never come back. And do you know why? Tell me. Nobody knows why. You don't know why because it's the silent client. They just disappear. That's the most dangerous client we could ever have. So this is kind of like where I start to have a vision, right? Of, okay, how are we doing? What are we doing? Look at your retention. Hey, we didn't get a bad Google review, but the client's not here anymore. So we're developing a system where we're going to understand why that happens. Today, we are talking to a salon leader who's using data, leadership development, and brand new review platform to change how salons operate. I'm happy to invite and welcome my friend Lou DeCola to the podcast. Welcome, Lou. Oh, thanks for having me, Heather. I appreciate it. I'm looking forward to our conversation and dive deep into what I'm doing, what's going on, and how I can help people and other salon owners continue to grow their businesses. Because we do stuff that's a little more visionary, a little innovative, out of the box thinking that helps us grow a lot better. Yeah. I mean, you've been in the industry for over 40 years and you're still innovating and even that word you use is is exactly what i think of when i hear about what you're doing um what keeps pushing you towards building better systems and and keep growing you know a lot of people find a great thing that works and just kind of set it and forget it you're in the middle of a continuous innovation so i'd love to know what keeps you inspired and going in that direction i mean i think i think that's the key right you know i strive uh you know i'm a very positive mindset in person so i get up every day and go it's the best day ever it's i start every day that way. It's the best day ever. What can we do? How can I become better? Make myself better? If I'm a better self, then I can make others better. And if the minute you think you know it all, or you're running at 100%, get yourself a mirror and look in it because you're done. Okay? You need to change. You need to constantly be innovative. You've got to always see what's coming next, because when you become complacent, then things start to fall apart. You're going to have great system is in place and they can be running great, but you still have to constantly be improving and being innovative because, you know, you're not wearing the same clothes you were, the same hairstyle you were five, 10 years ago. If you are, you're outdated. You know, we have to constantly, constantly evolve, especially with AI coming out and all that stuff there too. So. Yeah. And then that can be hard. Our industry is typically a little slow adapting. It can be, we're very in-person, hands-on, connected, community kind of feel. And so it can be it can be hard for I think salons and salon owners to feel ready to take those shifts and jumps. I'd love to know what is the biggest change or what things have you seen change a lot, especially speaking about adapting? Like if you're doing things the same as five to 10 years ago, you're old, right? You're outdated. When it comes to salon leadership, what's really different today in salon leadership than when you started all those years ago? I think the closed mindedness of salon owners today, we need to be open minded. Today's society and the workforce is totally different than it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. 20 years ago, 30 years ago, everyone worked 30 hours a week, 40 hours a week. That's not happening today. So my mindset and what What we've done is said, okay, today's young talent wants to work two days a week or three days a week, or they want to instant gratification. So we've changed our business model where I don't need a five-day-a-week employee. I'll take somebody who works two good days and they're working at 100% capacity. I got the best version of that person for two days. I'll take them and move on to the next. The issue that happens is your team needs to be bigger, larger. If you have a five chair salon, you need 10 stylists. Not back in the old days, you needed five stylists or four stylists. You need 10, maybe 15. But if your mindset is still back in, hasn't evolved into seeing what the young talent wants to do with their career, you're not going to succeed. And that's what I hear in the industry all the time. We can't find any employees. I've turned them away. That's how people come to our business, that we turn them away because I get to pick the cream of the crop because of the way that our business model is where I will take somebody that wants to work two days a week. It's okay. I think that's a big miss for some of the salon owners. So being adapted to the old model of, hey, you don't have to work five days a week or four days a week or every Saturday or every night. You're like, when are you best? Come and bring that to you. that's a lot to manage. I want to know, well, first of all, I want to know who's paying those people's bills. How are they making it? And I know that you're really passionate about helping your team build real life skill sets. They can set goals and things that are going to change their lives and have a huge impact. I want to know what does that look like for someone working part-time and how are you leading people in this way? Like what are you showing up as and helping them achieve in that way. So, you know, you're talking about making money, right? How these guys make money. Now, I'm also a realist. When someone comes to me and says, hey, I want to work two days a week, I'm going to be real with them and be like, listen, you're not going to make any money. Why don't you start at four and then you can work yourself down to two. My biggest version of that is if you're not a morning person, I don't want you in the morning because you're not in a good mindset, you're miserable. Yeah. Please don't come to work until you're happy. Yeah. Yeah. So the biggest compliment we get, we get, we get a lot of Google reviews, we get all that stuff there. And not only about our team members, but the atmosphere, everyone that's in the salon today working wants to be there. So can you imagine walking into anywhere you want to go and everyone that you're meeting wants to be there? What's that culture? What's that vibe like? It's, it's, there's so much positive energy. Yeah. And then as you start to, as the, as the young talent starts to build their clientele. It's business economics, supply and demand, right? So if you have someone that's working two or three days a week and they're fully booked, they're going to tear up quicker. Their pricing structure is going to go up quicker. And I do ask this question to everyone that comes work for me when they're like, they want to be a six figure stylist. I give them a task. I say, I want you to go find someone that's making six figures right now. I don't care what industry it is. I want you to ask them how long it took them to get there. And that's an aha moment for the young team and for anybody. It's like, okay, well, you're making six figures. It took them five years to get there. You think you're going to get there this year because you see it on Instagram and social media is as powerful as it is for our industry, is as detrimental as it is for our industry. Because young talent, look at the Instagrammers and the influencers and think, these guys are making a ton of money. Oh my God, I want to be that person. And then when the real fact out of all those influencers and people on Instagram and social media, they're not making all that much money, but the perception is. So I think it goes back into, you know, what is reality and what is the truth? The reality is people believe that they're making all that money. The truth is they're really not. If that makes any sense. I mean, setting that expectation That's I wasn't sure we were going to go with saying ask anybody who makes six figures. I'm thinking how many hours they're working a week. Like what is the thing and how long it took them to get there? That's so easy. You don't have to be the bad guy. You don't have to deliver bad news. You say, go ask people and I would say five years would be would be, you know, 100,000 is the new 50,000. Right. But but that used to be that used to be something that people were like, now I'm really making it now it's like, well, now you're scraping by depending on which major US city you live in, which is wild to think of. By the same token, asking anybody, I have two cousins who graduated law school not too long ago. They were making six figures for the first few years out of law school, coming out of a long, long period of schooling. So this is a great question to ask people across industries. I think that's really smart. You know, you talk about these real business skills, teaching these stylists. These are actionable skills. These are things that are going to help them build their business, things that are going to help them recruit and retain their guests and make the experience better. I would love to know, like, what are the biggest wins you've seen in some of the new talent that you have coached and worked with on these things? And what do you see happening on your team as they embrace these business skills? I mean, you see the growth, right? It's people buying houses, you know, unfortunately, you know, the elephant in the room right now is that in our industry, there's a lot of, we've had, we have this stigma that you're dumb, you make no money, go be a hairdresser. And one of my passions is to break that stigma. So I've got young ladies that work for me that are in their twenties, helping them buy their first house, which all of a sudden they're independent, empowering these young ladies and men to, you can stand alone, learn to stand alone. You have to learn to invest your money. You got to make money. You got to be diversified and stuff like that, you know, and everything there. And then it comes to the real fact is you can attain anything that you want. Anybody can. It's just put the plan together. I had a girl come to me that she wants to buy a house. And I said, let's put a plan together. Rule number one, stop going to Starbucks. You're spending $15 a day or DoorDash in every day. You do $15 a day. It's 75 bucks a it's $300 a month. It's almost $4,000 a year in coffee. But you want to buy that coffee, you want to live in a house. So it's just show open their eyes to a different perspective of what, you know, money is a tool to make you grow. Okay. It doesn't solve your problems. It's an actual tool and you can use that money and that tool to do better than that's a win. So I'll dive down deep into, you know, again, I don't push myself. If they want the coaching on how to do something outside their life, I'm like the second dad, whatever it may be, you know, on unconditional advice. I'm not looking for anything in return. I've got life experience. If you want my help, I can help you. And that's the biggest reward I see is when you see the young, you know, the, you know, any staff member achieve a goal that they really strive for. And that's, that's power. And then it becomes a for you. It's just like mentoring. When you mentor someone and they get it, there's no, there's no price tag on that. There's none, you know? Yeah. I know one of the, the best moments for me was when a team member of mine, um, bought our first home, realizing that she had worked six days a week, uh, full-time at our salon and then part-time moonlighting at another space that was just more repetitive work, uh, a salon that, that she worked at just to like fill the gap when I bought the salon. And I said, she'd been with the salon for about five years when I purchased it. And I said, I'll figure out audits for you to do, but I want you on site here more. I know we can do, she was very coachable. She was very adaptable and all about innovating as well. And I said, I, she had the hustle I could tell. And so I said, I'm here to help. And we worked together. She was my first, my first case study, if you will, of somebody who really accelerated. And I'll never forget. She told me she took her kids on a cruise. I don't remember where or what, but it was a Caribbean cruise. And her kids said, mom, are we rich now? Like they had this like, what's going on? This is great. And then she went from working six days a week to four. She's my top producer on the team. And she's working, you know, two days less than she was making triple. And and it brings, it brings me so much gratitude. It's the most humbling and rewarding feeling like you said, it's euphoria to see someone who gets it. And the more people you have on your team who get it, I imagine that's why you have a waitlist for people to work with you. Because they say something's going on over there. I want what's happening there. And I think that's, that's really, that's incredible. I'm curious too, how often are you leading team meetings? Or so do you meet with your whole team on a regular basis? Do you meet one-on-one just when they ask for it? What does that look like for someone on your team? So, you know, you're hitting me at a great time right now. Okay, because we are running, we're going, you know, we're running smoothly, we're growing. But then I realize that we need to do better. So I've spent the last four days, 15 hours a day, rebuilding our systems to make us better, which is crazy. So running meetings, we probably do stand-by meetings once a month, stuff like that. I just built a leadership team for the first time. So I've had managers before. Okay, you have a manager, assistant manager. But now we have a leadership team. We just built, and we're building that out now. We'll have eight people on our leadership team, plus managers. And the whole point behind that is if you can get, if you have one person following what you're doing right now, it's great. Imagine if I have eight or 10, what's the power of that? And then it gives them some value of they get the insight of how business runs. And that's like one of the things I want to teach my team and my leadership team is let's learn about business. Okay. Why do I make a decision this way? It's not just because Lou wants to make a decision. He doesn't want to use this color. He wants to use that color line. He had extra coffee this morning. He had a double shot and he got an idea. Right. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, building that structure, that data, and once you kind of expose your team to that and they understand where your vision is or what you're doing, it becomes more empowering. And then the whole goal for me is to make them better leaders than I am. That's my whole goal. If they can be better, I want them better than I am. And you said that you don't want want to be the smartest person in your team or in the room that you want, you want collaboration from leaders. And I love love loved reading that I was like, that's so impactful that like, you don't have to have an ego about it. Like I know everything you're like, No, I want I want eight of you to know as much as possible so that there's more. I love that. I love that energy. You know, go back to the same thing to write, you know, a team, what's a team? Okay, if you're, if the team can't have five star players, or 10 star players, they need one, they need everyone to be successful. A team that wins a championship didn't win it by one player, they won it as a team. So that's my whole mentality. We have a great team and we're growing and we're going in the same direction. The power of that is just, it's a big tidal wave. It just flows. Absolutely. You're multiplying yourself, you know, in a way, better versions of yourself, other skill sets. When you mentioned you've got eight, you know, you've got eight leaders now versus the two managers you had before, which is a pretty big shift. Are those people working as stylists and then taking a leadership component? Like do each of them lead a certain segment or co-lead? How did you kind of break that down? I know you're really big into systems and structure and things like that. So I'd love to know how you rolled that out and what it looks like in real life in your team. So basically what we did is it was an idea and a concept. And I put a thing out to my team about five months ago. I said, is anyone interested in leadership? And I thought, you know, I'd get one or two people. Well, I had eight people apply, right? Out of how many, roughly? I mean, we have 25, 26 stylists, you know, plus, you know, other support team. We have 42 employees, but stylists, we have 25, 25, 26. Were the leaders that applied all stylists? All stylists applied, yes. Okay, I had eight stylists apply. So my mindset was, and some were tier five, high level producers, some were entry level. My mindset was, why would I deter someone that wants to be a leadership or has interest in leadership? So I took all eight of them. And I said, we're going to build a team around these eight people. And, you know, it could be some might drop out, some might grow, but I took all eight of them. And now what we're doing is we're breaking it down into different segments of who's going to lead education, who's going to lead customer relations, who's going to lead software. So they're not going to lead tier levels of stylists. They're going to lead departments in the salon, and they'll become our experts in that area. And then we have an expert to go to in that area. Love it. So as this system, we started to develop this, we came up with another concept. Now it's called the Decola Academy. So we're actually, between before this podcast, what I'm done now, I'm going back to the conference room to continue to build the Decola Academy, which is going to be all about how systems work in our facility, in each segment, in each department. So it's constantly evolving. And I had one-on-ones with each leader last week just so they could speak freely because we had a group meeting. that's okay we're doing one-on-ones privately yeah give me your mind what do you want to work on and stuff like that and and some people's true colors came out which surprised me on some of them some introverted team members were bam they wanted some they wanted more they wanted more they want to learn more and that's like that's power so we took all that data and we're bringing that data into building the academies and and our systems but you know you know and i've been true disclosure too with my team. I'm like, listen, you guys are going to mess up. You're going to make mistakes, but so am I. So as much as I'm going to, you know, forgive you for your mistakes or mentor you, you need to have the same kind of courtesy to me because this is a new thing that we're developing. I think if you become honest with your team and straightforward, everything becomes easy. It's so much easier to do stuff like that. Hey, business owners. Yes, you. I know you're juggling at all. Marketing, admin tasks, websites, podcasts, social media, the list never ends. That's where Spark comes in. We're a virtual assistant company built just for small business owners because once you're able to delegate, we know you'll be able to dominate. Our clients are seeing up to 30% increase in social media engagement and sales all by letting us handle the behind the scenes work. Not to mention an incredible boost in flexibility, profit, and time. So scan the QR code right now to schedule a free chat with my team. Let's make you efficient AF and help you focus on what you do best, growing and leading your business. And like you said, you're leading by example that it's safe to adapt. It's safe to iterate. It's safe to get it wrong. I've never done this before. I've never had eight leaders, but let's make this teamwork and I'm going to get it wrong. You're going to get it wrong. and let's make it safe to get it wrong. And that's actually how you stop things from escalating to a total catastrophic event where it's gone wrong for a long time. And I love that you invited them in one-on-one to say, tell me what you're seeing. And there's so much power in that one-on-one connection, asking what improvements can I make as a leader? Or can you see me in DeCola Academy or DeCola salons improve? And I think that's very powerful. And you have to be, as you mentioned at the very beginning, willing to know like every day that you can improve. You've got to have an air of humility to understand that growth is ongoing and that we don't know at all. That opens up, that unlocks so much. That alone, it's like this podcast is complete, ladies and gentlemen. If you can just sear that into your brains, Ludacola has his whole entire, you know, purpose for existing has probably been emblazoned. At the same time, there's so much more. You have so much more understanding to offer, which I think is so impressive. You're very systems driven as you referenced, and you love data and systems and organization, and you do so in a way that's organic and it doesn't like suffocate, as you've mentioned, the flexible hours for your team members. So you're able to have data and systems without ruling with this iron fist, which I think is a balance a lot of people find hard to strike, especially when I was coming up, this is how we did it, you better just adapt. It sounds like you're the one adapting, not trying to cram old ways into a new demographic. So I would love to know what, uh, maybe it's with leadership or maybe it's just with salon ownership in general, but what systems or data have you put into place? Especially recently that has really made the biggest difference for you as a salon, whether it's in production or just freeing up your capacity to do that CEO level work. A lot of salon owners can't go back to the drawing board like you're doing to lead Decola Academy because they're bogged down. So, so what systems have you put into place that have unlocked this capacity for you? So, you know, the first, the first thing that they realize is you need to remove yourself from your business. Okay. The old deal and analogy work on your business, not in your business. So I find my most clarity when I'm not in the salon and I'm either doing something else. My, my, my clarity comes out and I'm actually working on a new project right now, which is pretty crazy. Cause I, I became obsessed with this one question, one question, why Why do clients leave when they say they love you? Okay. Why all of a sudden, you know, your client's happy, but they never come back. And do you know why? Tell me. Nobody knows why. Okay. So I was like waiting for the answer. Yeah. You don't know why, because it's the silent client. They just disappear. So that's the most dangerous client we could ever have. So this is kind of like where I start to have a vision, right? Of, okay, how are we doing? What are we doing? Look at your retention. Hey, we didn't get a bad Google review, but the client's not here anymore. Yeah, but why is your retention at 30%? Right. Why is that? Why is that? Why is that? Why is that there? So, you know, we're developing a system where we're going to understand why that happens. So is this by chance, something I can reference by name? Not really by name. Well, we call it right now, I call it my I operate under a thing called the 100% client satisfaction standard. You got a satisfaction guarantee. Let that sink in for one second. Satisfaction guarantee is the scariest thing you could tell someone to say, Hey, listen, I want to make sure that you are 100% satisfied. That's scary as an owner going, Oh my God, we're going to get, Janie didn't like the paper towel. She didn't like that. He didn't like this. And you think you're going to nitpick. And now I'm paying them back. Right. But what happens is as a true owner and a true visionary, why would you not want to know everything that's wrong or that you could upgrade in your business? Is it like a secret shopper every day? I mean, is that what's like a secret shopper coming with a clipboard and being like, that was too bright. That was too cold. This was good. This was bad. Like how, how are you doing this? Is this, is this something you might be developing for others to try by chance? this is going to be a software that we're developing okay that will be able to actually have real-time data analytics and you'll understand before that client never comes back why they were not 100 satisfied and then what happens is that's going to give you the power to recover that client before they go to google give you a bad review because with no with a lot people in in the industry look at is the reviews if you get a review it's already done it's too late yeah okay so if you can stop before it gets there it's more powerful to to fix the problem before it gets to that to that to that point so it also takes out the guesswork of like okay why did they leave now you know why they were unhappy how can we fix it we have data points touch points um and as we as we continue to build a system and when we launch this system it's going to change the industry it really is because you know right now it's kind of like um everyone's guessing yeah you're guessing why didn't janie come back she said she loved it oh maybe she moved maybe your friend but you have no idea was it too expensive was it too far of a drive it's the silent quitting lou like people who you don't know why they're going but they're gone yeah that happens a ton yeah it'll also be a system that will close the gap between how a client feels and what the salon knows okay let that sink in right what the what the what the what the the client felt versus what we know. We thought they felt great, but they never came back. So what, where, where do we miss that gap? Yeah. And if you can, you know, and as this is in development, as, as, as we come to fruition with it, we'll have analytics. You'll know exactly what went wrong, where, how to, how, how to recover. Um, because that's the, that's the biggest key is, you know, if you, how can you recover quickly? If there's a bad, if there's There's an unsatisfied customer. Can I recover today? Yeah. So, you know, we actually have, you know, we're doing testing on it right now. But it also creates accountability. And that's one of the big buzzwords everyone talks about all the time. Hold yourself accountable. This will hold your team accountable even to that point there where they know this is out there. They know clients are going to be getting this kind of system coming afterwards. they're going to up their game. It also gives you coaching opportunities at the end if you're having the same issues with a certain service or a certain decor, anything in the salon, hot water's not where you'll be able to find all the pressure points in your business. And it's pretty powerful. Well, it also served the same benefit to do, and Dizzy refers to it as plussing, will also serve the same benefit of finding areas that are working and how to even make those better or will mainly focus on like this was why they left does it serve both purposes or what is the main besides understanding why they're gone and how to coach to it instantaneously so so the whole purpose behind it is retaining the clientele customer retention because if if a client is really satisfied and happy they're going they're going to google giving you a five-star review they're telling their friends heather i love the way the salon It's, you know, that's all your pat on the back. That's all great. And that's, I think, what everyone, if you know, you're in the industry, you see what everyone talks about, get your five star review, five star review, five star, that's all we push for is five star reviews. Okay, and then what happens is when you get that two star review, you're like, what happened? Well, I know what happened, you know, we're getting that before it gets to that point. I mean, how many times have you walked out of a business and thought, I'll never go back, but I'm not going to go through the trouble. I'm not a bad review writer. I just don't. I'll go out of my way to write a good review. But if it's mediocre, I just go away. You're a sucker. Yep. I'm one of them. I actually do like to give feedback because I am a small business owner. So I'll say, Hey, hey, Lou, I wanted to hit you up and let you know, like, I'm still coming back to your space. But this thing happened. And I think it might deter their guests like I would let you know, right. But a lot of people don't do that. So you're capturing this in real time before it turns into they disappeared before it turns into a bad review. My question beyond reviews, because I'm not as a review obsessed, though so many people are with that metric. And it's cool. It's cool to have a lot of good reviews. It's important. I like retention. I like profitability. I like KPIs. I don't care how good my Instagram looks or how happy my team looks or the decor of my salon being perfect. I care about obviously humans first and foremost, but when we're talking about as a business owner, what I care about, you can give me five, five star reviews or give me 5,000. I want to know what my profit margin is. I want to know if I'm making money and I want to know how I can grow. So I would like to know, like as a salon owner who's done this and been at this, who's so devoted to data, to systems and so forth, like what's one KPI that you think every salon owner should be looking at every week? Or what's one KPI that you're like, people neglect this one, but get into it. I mean, you know, there's a bunch, you know, client visits, average ticket. You can give me five. But yeah, but even as the same thing too, let's go back to your other thing. You like data, you like revenue. Suppose that my platform, tell me if you have five stylists that work for you, and it can save one client a month, one client a month at $100. That's $6,000 a year you just made that you would have lost silently. That's just one client. That's it. That's just one client for five stylists. Not a month. That's one stylist. That's one time. Yeah. The power is the ROI, the metric on that is dramatic. So, we look at retention. That's one of the things that we looked at. I just saw a stat the other day that only, I think it was like 23% or 30% of new clients return to your salon. Isn't that heinous? Especially if you consider or how much you're spending to get them in. You know, so that's data, man. That's power. Cause we're in business to make money. Yeah. And if we can retain that client. That's it. My question is with this like prototype that you've been working on your own team and on your own end, numbers and data coming to mind here, what kind of improvements are you seeing in retention as a result of employing this software and this prototype? Oh, we've retained almost 75% of the people that have completed what we're doing right now. Wow. It's insane because what ends up happening. Are these new guests, by the way? Like 75% new guests? Some are new. Some are existing. Okay. So there's no parameter. It's not geared just for new guests. It's every single client, every single time. Because if you go to the other touch point is today your service was great with me, but I was off next month. And you're like, eh, you know what, I'm not going back to live because he was, you know. Yeah. So it's all clients. And it's pretty strong. That's why I came up with it. And it was like, we're missing something here. And then there's nothing happening like this anywhere. And I'm really excited. I mean, I'm biting my tongue because it's like, you know, I want to keep it close to here, but I want to get it out. And once I get it out, it's going to, it's going to, it's really going to kind of push our, you know, industry to the next level. and salons that over the next five years the ones that stop guessing about why people leave what's going on and start knowing what's going on are the ones that are going to elevate naturally that's what's going to happen how long have you been using this in your own salon or some form of it about eight months okay so you've got some there's some definite traction do you have other salons that have been testing it with you we don't we don't we're that's what's coming out with over the next over the next month or so we'll have other uh i know this girl who owns a salon who would be more than thrilled to sample it for you and give you incredible feedback i'll put you in touch with her uh soon her name's heather so that's that's super cool absolutely i i love i love information i i like to say and i've probably said it before on the podcast that facts don't have feelings numbers don't have feelings numbers don't lie like it is a fact your attention is 30 percent or 75 percent it is a fact that that guest did not return it's it's not a feeling that i'm doing good hair and my salon is great and i'm happy here it's how is it really going i really really love any tool well first of all i love self-improvement and that that translates to other components of life like business etc i want to get better every day um big believer in the compound effect but i want to know how do you know how you can get better without feedback and without asking for example your your leadership team hey guys one-on-one what do you really think and how can we get this better we are doing the same kind of uh thing with the guest experience thank you for coming in and and now getting real feedback and that's that is real that's actionable that's coachable i i have team members with astronomically higher attention and some with like we can't figure it out their their guests leave looking beautiful they seem happy they rebook and then it's just like something's happening in that attrition piece what a puzzle to solve and this could you know if you think about even like the price per client acquisition if you think about it uh it maybe it costs 20 per guest if you put in all your marketing spend or your offers or whatever you do to to get a guest new chair let's just call it a conservative 20 per guest you see them once you're losing money you see them twice you're breaking even more or less three times now i've made money on you and if you're spending twenty dollars a guest and your retention is at 30% that is $60 actually per real guest. Now it's actually taking us three times to break even. You start looking at that math and man, if we could even shorten that gap this much or improve our numbers by 10 or 15%, that's real profit. Like you mentioned, that's $6,000 a year right back into your business or in your pocket. I think it's really exciting. By the way, everybody, I met Lou in what wasn't Ireland. This is a fun, fun fact for this. We did not technically meet in Ireland. We were in Iceland, post Ireland. We both took the same flight. We were at the Forest Salon Summit in January and I went to Iceland on my stopover. And I'm not going to lie to you guys. I spoke to, I don't know, a couple hundred people and I spoke in a room with a couple hundred people. And were you in the room, Lou? You were in the room. I was, yes. Okay, Lou was in the room, which I was pretty sure of that, but I didn't remember every single face in the room. And I'm sitting on the, after we get off the plane in Iceland on the bus with all the other people going from the shuttle to the terminal or whatever it was. And this guy named Ludicola looks at me and goes, Heather, right? And I'm like, maybe. Why? Who's, who's, where's big brother and why is he following me? And because I didn't know, I had no color. I'm in Iceland. I'm not in Ireland anymore. He goes, I was at the Forest Summit. I'm like, oh, superb. So there's not like an air tag. I'm not one to buy the FBA. Okay, we're good. So then I was fine. It was cool. Okay. I mean, you never know. And anyway, it was fun. We made a great conversation. And your sweet wife, your patient, amazing wife, she was with you and your partner. And I mean, by the time we got off the bus, I'm like, what's this thing you're developing? Tell me more about it. Will you be on my show? I want to know more about what you're doing. And just, you know, anytime I find a salon bestie who's got something cool going on, I love innovators. I love bright ideas. And I want to learn and grow too. And I know that the people who listen want to learn and grow as well. And so what you're creating, what you've created, actually, what you're preparing to launch soon, I think will make a huge impact on our industry, our ability to show up better, to fine tune the experience and to increase real numbers, which hallelujah to that, right? Everybody wants that. So it was a fun, it was a fun minute. And I can't remember what it was like. Now we're like walking to get our baggage claim. And I'm like, I'm halfway done doing like my podcast outline in my head and thinking this is going to be good because I like what you got going on. And leading your team with consulting and having a teacher's heart or a person wants to improve, you're bringing that to the other spaces you find yourself in, which I think is a way of just giving back. It's a palpable gift back to people after having a successful career and running. You don't just run one business, you run four, which is more than most people can do with five of their best nights sleep in a row, let let alone, you know, running a salon is one enough. But I think that's like really hats off to that. I would love to know, actually, the people listening would love to know. So this is going to air sometime in April 2026. I would love to know where people can find more information about what you're doing, where people can follow you or work with you. Within months of listening, there will be a product they can use and see real results from. So I want to know how people can figure out how to do that and reach out to you. So they can jump, you know, my Instagram, um, at Lou DeCola. Um, you can also, um, go to decolasalon.com. That's our website for the salon. And we have some stuff on there too. So once we really get things launched and pushing, I'll be making a bigger push to get things out there. We will be at, uh, David Driven and, um, uh, in May, uh, we were top 200 salons. We'll be there. Big congrats. What category? I'll be there too with Tantrum. What category? Innovative technology. So funny. Who would have known? So let's add Fane Shock. I'll be there for growth with Tantrum Salon and then Spark will be presenting a workshop. So I get to be there as five different people. It's so fun, right? I can't wait to see this. So Data Driven, that's going to be right after this airs. And then we'll have you'll probably have a website and other things to launch once you got the official launch of that. We will include how to contact you in your show in the show notes here. But But beyond that, I want to know where else people can find you. Is there anything that looks next for you? What's up and coming besides this, the software developing? Brian Smith, we were doing salon training.com on if you know who they are. Yeah, I just interviewed her. Yeah. Tracy? Oh, yeah, Tracy. Yeah, Tracy's a friend of mine. Yeah, so I'm actually doing a show from her. Good. Yeah, so I'm gonna do that with her. We have a show in the 2027. She's putting a show together. Yeah. So we'll be at that show. Excellent. So that's, yeah, that's, you know, I'm kind of like starting to direct myself back to the beauty industry for my other company. So we're gonna start pushing a little bit more here because we, you know, our new project with the software and stuff like that too. So I'll be, I'll be more available and have more contact, more, more, you know, touch points as, uh, I continue to put them together, but I'm excited about it. You know, I mean, I said, I love helping people. I love meeting people and, you know, I really want to get our industry to where, where it belongs, where we are professionals getting paid like professionals, carry yourself like a professional. Um, and I think that's one of the biggest internal stereotypes we have of ourselves is I'm just a hairdresser. Okay, well, I'm just a hairdresser. I probably make more than a doctor. You know, it's like that's you- And I'm gonna guarantee you have more fun. You have way more fun. Oh, yeah. I'm doing right now, I'm on the 50th floor. I'm in the 50th floor conference room in Miami, working on systems. We have a lot more fun, guys. I've got a bad secret for everybody who didn't know this who's not a stylist, but our job is more fun than your job. Just so you know, I invited a friend to a work party for the salon team. And it's hard to go into an environment where you're the outsider, you don't know anybody. It's like, I'm at a work party. It's kind of awful. It's like most people got to get liquored up before they go, you know. Anyway, I'm not a drinker, but I'm showing up to this work party. And I said, trust me, it'll be fun. And when they when they left the party, I mean, it was like, I'll give you 30 minutes like we can go. You got to have a wingman or wing woman come come with me be my hype person let's go and 30 minutes and they they lean over and said this is way more fun than any work party i've ever been to and i had to drag them away at the end of the work party and i was like i told you and it was like probably three or four comments four days following like that was that was really fun your team is fun the people you work with have a good time they like each other don't they i'm like i've been trying to tell people well beyond making money, we're also having more fun, which I think, more money, more fun, call me. For a good time, call Lou and Heather. That's it, we're in, we're in. Well, hopefully we'll see a lot more of you definitely coming up at Data Driven. And then at Tracy's event in 2027, she mentioned that she does that show that she's going to do every other year. So very excited. Thank you so much for being a guest today and for your passion for the industry and also just developing the up and comers. Like, listen, that's a good thing to grow new talent and to pour into people. So thank you for that and what you're doing to lead our industry, Lou. Well, I appreciate it. Heather, it was a pleasure meeting you back in Iceland. And then this is how relationships start. We just start growing, doing things, make connections. And I'll come on again if you'd like to have me on again. And we will definitely see you in May in Austin, Texas. Austin. Yeah. I was like, if you're like me i'm like what city and state am i in even right now but yes all right well thank you so much i appreciate you have a beautiful afternoon oh you too heather thank you

What if your biggest business problem… is the one you can’t see?

In this episode, Heather sits down with salon owner and innovator Lou DeCola to break down one of the most overlooked threats to salon growth: the silent client—the guest who says they love you… and never comes back.

With over 40 years in the industry, Lou shares how he’s redefining salon leadership through data, systems, and a completely different approach to team structure and retention.

Inside this episode, you’ll learn:

•⁠  ⁠Why salon owners are guessing instead of knowing what’s actually happening in their business
•⁠  ⁠The truth about retention (and why it matters more than reviews)
•⁠  ⁠How to adapt your team structure to today’s workforce
•⁠  ⁠The mindset shift that separates stagnant salons from growing ones
•⁠  ⁠A new system that could completely change how salons track and recover clients

If you want to grow your salon, increase profit, and finally understand what’s really happening behind the scenes… this is a must-listen.

🌐 DeCola Salon:
https://www.decolasalon.com/

Follow Lou:
📸 Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/lou.decola/?hl=en

🔗 LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/loudecola/

Branding and consistency are everything.
Let Spark do the work for you—from setup to weekly execution.
👉 Talk to Spark » Spark Pro Global – sparkprosalon.com

Spark Links:
📸 Instagram: @sparkproglobal — https://www.instagram.com/sparkproglobal

🔗 LinkedIn: Spark Pro Global — https://www.linkedin.com/company/spark-pro-global

Heather’s Instagram:
📸 @heather.tantrumsalon — https://www.instagram.com/heather.tantrumsalon