Permission to Be Exactly Where You Are – with Sam and Jen

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[00:00:16] Jen: I think there's this weird perception that things are good when things aren't hard, but nothing feels good if you don't have hard

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[00:00:32] Jen: I'm in the hustle, fucking hustle, hustle, hustle, not just the beginning of the week. Every day is a hustle.

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[00:00:50] Jen: I find bite-size constant is better for my young team long-winded once a week

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[00:01:12] Jen: when I was young there were a few opportunities that I said no to that. I look back now, I'm like, you're an idiot. The time would've passed anyway. The time is gonna pass anyway.

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Go on back, your girls, subscribe now and let's keep rising together.

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[00:01:51] samara: podcast in our bedrooms because life is messy and I'm eating my breakfast.

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[00:02:05] samara: Why, Jen? Why did we have to record the why? Why did we have to do that?

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It wasn't broken initially, it was just weakened. But then she decided she was okay and she went back to training and then she had another fall and that that was on the Friday. So if we go with that story, I only left my child with a broken wrist for two days before I sorted it out. And I'm actually a really good parent, guys, I swear.

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[00:03:09] Jen: Oh yeah.

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And I think it, it needs to be a bigger conversation for business owners of, you know, are you getting to the point of having to stop something, having to, you know, not push through? Where is your body telling you no? Where do you know you need to stop? What does that look like? And are you doing it before you crash and burn?

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And it felt, definitely felt reminiscent of the build to that. And I've gotta be so careful now that I've had shingles that if I push too hard, I get it again in.

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[00:04:46] Jen: Yeah.

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And I feel like, like at Christmas time, a time to also. Like reset, like you eat kind of a bit rubbish over the weekend and you feel a bit blur. So like yesterday was spent, you know, out my wardrobe. 'cause even though I've only just done that, I just threw out another, like five garbage bags.

Well, didn't throw out, gave to my sister another five garbage bags. But it's a time for rest. But it's also yet a time to be like, okay, we need to reset the, the. There's no exercise. The food's gone out the door. It's like that time, I'm like, we need more four day weekends. Three day weekends at least. '

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[00:05:39] samara: That. No, but that's what I mean. I feel like by the end of the weekend, I actually exercised yesterday for the first time since probably Christmas. Like I feel like by the end of the weekend you're finally able to reset and go again.

So I feel like coming into this next, I don't know, what do we say, four months this next quarter

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[00:06:00] samara: and it's the quarter to tax time. It is really important to reset at this time of the year because I also do feel like February and March. For me, mid-February and March that are quieter.

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[00:06:29] samara: Yes. Yeah, January's fun for us. It's just kind of like that mid feb. It happens every year and every year we're like, Ugh. And every year it's like, it's always the same every single year. I feel like I'm in a different season now though, because I'm back on the floor. So if everyone doesn't know that I'm back on the floor full time. I've never felt more lit up by it. So, you know, genuine, anyone that's listening, I don't have to be. I actually had four interviews lined up and I canceled them. I'm back on the floor full time. I love it. I'm really lit up by it. I, and I've only got a team of two like me and two now, so it's a very different season for what I've walked through for many years.

That's why we're podcasting at eight 15 in the morning. Like this is normally my drop off time with the kids and I don't have to do it today 'cause we're on school holidays, so I'll do this and then I'll go to the salon. , I just feel like, you know, when you need to connect, I dunno if any other salon owners feel like this that have gotten off the floor, but you almost need to reconnect back in with that part or business. The customer service side, the. Consult side, the retail side, it's like connecting back into that side of your business has been, deeply fulfilling. And also just, I'm really loving the, the fact that I can just go to work, do my job, and come home. And the bigger the team, the harder it is to do that. So,

So this feels like a different season for me. But I think that that's the thing is how am I resourcing myself now? So I've kind of walked through all those different seasons. I, I used to have a lot more time off. I was only on the floor one to two days a week. Now I'm on four. this is a different season for me of how I also nurture myself.

Like you would understand this, Jen. Otherwise, when you're on the floor like that and you are not resourced, that's when the burnout happens. So that's been really interesting. And also having a, you know, I've always had the flexibility of fitting my clientele or fitting the salon's clientele in week to week.

My clients, generally, we'll have some that are booked, but a lot of clients wanna book on the week. And now I think we're fully booked for the next three to four weeks that it's interesting. Now I'm running a full-time wait list. But I think if, like, if you remember Jen, there was so many times where I kept saying, I just want a booked out salon.

I just want a booked out salon. I out salon like, I have it now and it's things like on a Monday when I have to do the appointments, which I have been doing since my manager left years ago. Now it doesn't feel chaotic because

Everything's already booked.

Everything's already, confirmed. 'cause I'm pretty strict on that right now. Like, if you don't confirm and I have to chase you, you may not get your appointment. but then we also have a wait list down one side. So if anything's not confirmed, nothing goes on socials, it just automatically goes into the, like, I'll text them and they'll go, yep, I'll take it. But it's a really interesting. Time for me because I'm not used to that. I'm used to like hustling at the beginning of the week, making sure that it's booked. But now we're at this like capacity piece where we've gotta make sure that we're really taking the extra care of our clients, but it also means that our week feels a lot easier.

And I used to book myself like 10 people deep and everybody would help me. And I can't do that anymore because the other girls are also booked. So it's. for me, being able to, you know, do this podcast and know all of the different seasons, I think it's an important season to come back to, but I actually really love it here. Where are you at?

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[00:10:24] samara: And I think this is really important. I think this is a beautiful piece, so. Jen actually has more team than I do now. Jen's one of four. I'm one of three.

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[00:10:38] samara: okay. Well, Jen has 3.5. Has

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[00:10:48] samara: Okay. With 3.5. got more than me. but she's got, you've got you another senior a second year is she now?

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[00:10:59] samara: And a baby that's school-based. And then that's different too because you need to put training into there. You are doing more, uh, emerging stuff, getting, you know, them booked in different ways.

Whereas I've just got senior, I've just got me and two seniors. And even that in itself is different. but go, go on the hustle. I don't wanna interrupt you. I think this is good for people to hear.

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I find I'm pretty consistently booked. It's just filling the girls.

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[00:11:59] Jen: Oh my gosh, I don't even know. So have, tiered pricing. So we have entry level pricing for, our younger team so that they are consistently doing things so that they're actually getting better and better at things instead of just doing like once a week training. 'cause I feel like that's where, especially with young ones, they.

Come from a really fast-paced environment. You know, kids are like flicking through things really fast. So if you can't be consistently hitting their education, they start to feel really bored. So I find that anything that I train with the girls, I then make sure that they have at least one of those every single And people are paying, obviously less for them, but it just means they get that constant. I find bite-size constant is better for my young team long-winded once a week

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[00:13:06] Jen: they're getting it all the time. And then we hit it from all angles. But my young team, I am to hustle for themselves because they will work for themselves like my, one of my apprentices.

had this conversation from the beginning that she wants to work for herself, so I don't hustle to fill her column. She hustles to fill it herself. So we work out, we do it together. We work out what her offers are. We have all her tiered pricing, she has her own socials. We decide what groups she's gonna post them in.

We're really lucky, like we are, the salon's really close to a university on the Gold Coast, so she is able to get. A lot of clients through that where she's just building that nice little growth and we are definitely finding that even as her pricing goes up, those people wanna stay with her 'cause they like her.

So that's really good for that.

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Is she gonna give you time when she's qualified?

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[00:14:22] samara: Yeah. Okay.

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I have little systems in play in the background that will actually. Load it and have that process for people so that they onboard really easily. So that's like a little bit of like tech backend stuff that's just being built for me at the moment. And then our big thing that we've been honing in on referral because I genuinely believe that advocacy is the best form of advertising that you can have.

So our referral program is really. Pushing at the moment. we also introduced, memberships for like some of our more expensive, ticket items. Like things like a lot of our extension clients are on memberships now because they can just pay a weekly amount that's paying for all their maintenance and their hair, and they're never having to come up with that big lump sum and one go.

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[00:15:44] Jen: Yeah, it's consistent cash flow. And then we also did a, blow dry membership, which, is again, just with my, mostly just with my, school-based apprentice. And it's great for her. And she has really converted clients, you know, to be more than just the blow drives. So, and that means that on her days that she's in, I know that she always has that client interaction to be building her confidence to speak to different people, to offer different things.

So, Yeah.

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But I did have a good chunk of time off through Wilder's, like Wilder being born, going through my divorce, like I had more time, more flexibility. I'm actually more in a space now where it's easier for me just to go to the salon for my set hours. And know that that's what it is every single week and come home and have no, no pressure of managing people.

'cause I've only got two that I've gotta manage and they're a dream. So it's, I think everybody's really got to reflect as you're listening to this or reflect on where you want to be and what you want to do. Because sometimes we think, for me, I would've said to you, oh, I wanna be off the floor a lot more. I want to just be able to manage and come and go as I please. And with the way that my I, my anxiety is with the way that I function, I was never disconnecting anyway, and then I was just sitting in a guilt stage when I wasn't there. So for me, it's actually just be better to do my 38 hours on the floor with them and be home because that feels like I'm at more peace with hands being

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[00:18:11] samara: Yeah, so I'm doing 38 hours on the floor and then all of the other stuff has to find its place in my life somewhere generally on Mondays. Mondays I have, without the kids, um, while is in kindy now on a Monday. So I am really focused on making sure my weekends, if anyone, anyone has. Used to hearing me that I don't do anything on my weekends for work ever. Very, very, very, very rarely. So though I don't have that time during the week with them, I've got full weekends with them where I do not work. They never see me work on the weekends. So they get two days always dedicated to them. That's not me working. It's not me distracted all kind of. The nights I'm home, I'm the same as well. But generally on Mondays when I don't have the kids, that's when I do all of the paperwork. It's a non-negotiable. So even yesterday being Easter Monday, I did all the pays. I did the, you know, all the accounts. And that's something I'm very proud of as well, is everything's dropped substantially. Right.

But so have my wages. So we can't bring in as much, my wages have dropped. So you are, I'm at the moment I am. Sitting, we're sitting at that like a hundred percent capacity without being at capacity, if that makes sense. The, the I book my team really well. So we are never, like, we've had two weeks now of the little team and we've never gotten to the point where we're like struggling.

It's, we are all have, we all have break all, they all had breaks. You know, we still have time and space within the day to get back to appointments and things like that, but more so now that we. At that capacity, that's the amount of income we know is coming in. then all of the other things less.

Wages are less. Stock is less. Taxes are

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Remember when we were talking, because you and I and one of our friends were talking recently about like how like getting that ratio down, you know, when we were looking, do you feel like that now has put you in that scope where your wage ratio is

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[00:20:21] Jen: That's so good.

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[00:20:27] Jen: Yeah.

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[00:20:45] Jen: Yeah.

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[00:20:58] Jen: we did. I think this was the conversation we were having. including what my pay, or is this the wages of your team?

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[00:21:22] Jen: Yeah. Okay.

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[00:21:30] Jen: Yeah.

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[00:21:35] Jen: Okay.

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[00:21:44] Jen: makes sense.

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[00:21:45] Jen: make sense.

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[00:22:02] Jen: Yeah.

Yeah. Agreed.

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[00:22:08] Jen: Okay.

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[00:22:19] Jen: got it written down somewhere,

okay, so staff expenses is industry average is around 45% and retail is 14%. Rent is 10%.

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[00:22:33] Jen: 2.5%. Advertising and marketing around 2.5% and your other costs should sit around the 6% mark with your GST sitting at 10%, and then if you're profitable, that would be 10% of the overall as well.

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[00:22:51] Jen: Interesting.

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[00:23:00] Jen: S.

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[00:23:23] Jen: Yeah.

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So maybe do a three month in your reports, pull up three months. Divide it by 13 and see what your average income is per week, and then look at what your average wages are, because The other thing we do in our finances is know whether we are going to be too high or too low too, and that's something that we love.

So being able to input your like staff on one side, their wage, and then three and a half times to four times their wage, that gives you a really good indication. If that comes back at 20 grand and you're only making 10 grand, you already know your wages are gonna be far too

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[00:24:12] samara: because you need to be hitting those higher numbers. Everybody needs to be hitting their numbers. who in your team right now is pretty much dragging the apple cart? Everyone's constantly hitting or just hitting above or you know, wherever that be. Who in your team is sitting below what they need to make? And sometimes that can be like, if I look at one of my team members, even now. She's just, come up another, like, she's just come to senior like six months ago, because she, else went with the other seniors before her, she just was never hitting it. Whereas now she's a senior. She has to do the work I needed to do. She's incredible. And so now she's hitting it consistently every week with not an

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[00:24:59] samara: So. Sometimes it can be a you thing because you've got too many people in that business, and sometimes it can be a them, them. But where is the mishap happening? Are they not reaching targets because it's, know, there's too many people and they're not getting the work? Or are they not reaching targets because they're not selling retail, they're not rec like they're not upselling.

And that can be another thing that I've seen in my business as

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absolutely.

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[00:25:57] Jen: helping people with a problem. This is what I say all the time. You, it's not about like, you are not trying to sell someone something. Someone just sat here and told you that they have a problem and they, and you have something that could help with that. Why don't you wanna help them? They don't have to take it.

Who cares if they say no, but just offer the help?

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[00:26:38] Jen: Great.

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[00:26:46] Jen: Yeah, like I have team members not hitting their targets, but that's just because we need to get people to sit in their chair.

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[00:26:54] Jen: not like a, there hasn't been the opportunity to not do the extra things because sometimes we just don't have the numbers for her.

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[00:27:29] Jen: . I don't know. There's, there's nothing that's happened, good or bad. Like the, the hard times, the good times that have been like, oh no, I didn't think that that would happen. I think I've definitely learned that I have to be cautious to reign myself in. I've definitely done like, and just, you know, slow down things like, and nothing major, but just.

Gone. Yes. I want to get that. And then thought, Ugh, ugh, i've had some expensive lessons, that's for sure. I mean, we talked about the getting sucked into things that everyone says is cool. know, like I had a very expensive lesson in terms of like a brand of hair that I used that. I've had that happen twice now, like that they have been expensive lessons to learn, but in terms of like the day-to-day function of it, I don't think I've been shocked by anything if that makes

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[00:28:33] Jen: Hmm.

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[00:28:48] Jen: Uh, yeah, pretty much.

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[00:28:53] Jen: Yeah.

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And you can be like, I'm making so much money, Yolo, this is a great time. Like, let's go. And then all of a sudden, year two comes around and tax comes for you in a completely different way, and you are like, then you're in like an angry partier business almost, because you're like, why is there no money? Why is this a lot harder?

Why? Whereas you never started like that. You started why then?

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[00:30:06] samara: yep.

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[00:30:07] samara: It's a long, slow game. When you actually think about it, it's a long slog, but I'm here I am at like 17 years, so it's kind of like

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[00:30:35] samara: more so I think the wisdom that comes with it. because of the fact, when you're young, you just think it's going to be easy. Like I feel like when you're young, you're like, this is gonna be a walk in the park. Like, I've got this, I, you know, I'm already making four grand a week for stylist.

I may as well do it myself. Like this is gonna be a fucking dream. And. It's not always the case. and I, I do think our industry has definitely become too work for yourself. Work for yourself. Work for yourself, not realizing that A, not everyone wants to,

and B, if you've got a good boss. And someone who wants to keep you and wants to build you in your own business. I know that my, I take really good care of my team at the end of the day, I'd rather them do their thing in my business and control everything for them, and they just make good money and go home them having to do it all themselves.

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[00:31:47] samara: Yeah.

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were talking about, I, I don't know how, I think everyone was just really tired leading up to Easter, and they'd seen this thing on TikTok where there's that like, I don't know, there's legs going in, ways that I don't think legs should go like, and so they're all lying on the floor trying to do it. And her mom's like, yeah, she did gymnastics for a bit, but then we had to pull her out because she doesn't like being told what to do.

just went home and taught herself. I was like, yeah, that tracks like, so, yeah. There's some people you openly have said to me so many times. I work for myself because I don't like being told what to do.

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[00:32:46] Jen: Yeah.

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[00:33:08] Jen: Yeah.

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[00:33:20] Jen: I know

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It's still not always a good thing even that way because I still like having a business only heightens that you just 'cause you're not being told what to do as boss and an employee doesn't mean that it stops.

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[00:33:46] samara: anyway, so that's a whole nother conversation, but it's because I can't handle constructive criticism.

So please don't come on our podcast and tell me what to do differently because I'll quit. Not you. Just like people in general. If you write reviews that tell me to do something different, expect your podcast to not go ahead anymore. Because I like then just think I'm the worst. So it's more that. Okay. So we're going into quarter two. What is your plans for the next three months?

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[00:34:39] samara: what about personally?

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I, was thinking yesterday I was gonna send you one of those gushy messages that I send you all the time about how much I love you yesterday, because I was just like, man, I'm really lucky.

Like I have such a good life.

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Like condescending. I was like, 'cause it's not, it's it. It actually is not. I just like turned on love on the spectrum. 'cause the New season's out, they love it so much and I was like. But I just really love our life. And Lee just burst out laughing and I was like, and that's not me saying it, just because are yelling at the kids and trying to get dinner ready.

I just, I love the fact that we're about to sit down and watch Love on the spectrum. And I was like, it's just like vastly different to what I had. But, I've had to go through messages in my phone because I'm gearing up for, court, which is super exciting. But. caught itself, but the fact that this hell, that I've gone through for three years is really, is, would be really close to being over. And I can't wait to kind of be able to say that on the pod as well. But I had to go through messages of my old life with, messages between me and one of my best friends and messages between me and my ex-husband. And when you reflect to where you were to where you are now in, in life and in business, it's just. Like, you can't, like you said, you can't help but just be like really, really deeply grateful for how happy your life is. And there's so much going on in the world, so much crazy stuff all the time, you know, fuel and wars and all of the things and the, everyone's coming in in different states to the salon.

But I think the most important thing we've gotta do is just continue to feel really grateful for, for the things we have, not the things that we're

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agreed. Agreed.

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Or I thought things would, you know, I'd hit a level financially and I wouldn't have to work, or I would hit this, or this would look like this and then life is just not like that. And so many salon owners sell their salon because of it, because they're like, hold on, it's not going to, you know, fulfill all my dreams.

It's not gonna make me feel all of the things. It's not gonna like change my life and I'm going to be doing all of these things. Sometimes it's just a season.

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[00:38:04] samara: It's a, it's a season and the season's good. It doesn't mean the season has to always completely go the way you think it would go. To be perfectly honest, rich, I think you'll be all right if I talk about this, but to be perfectly honest, we thought Sal Rising would go a different way.

Not the podcast. The podcast is, you know, the doing amazing, but, the actual business itself, you know, rich and I really thought that that would, that would be different. And for the first, 18 months. It was different to what we thought it was gonna be. And it was, it, you know, it, it blew, it blew up how we didn't think it, it expected it to, but the capacity's only so much for me, for two businesses and five kids. And, you know, we had to, both of us had to go like, is this where we want to be anymore? Is this, is this what feels right for us anymore? the coaching where I wanna be, or do I want to be back in my salon? And I had to be radically honest with myself to what that looked like. And I am back in the salon because I really generally really love being a hairdresser. And back in the past I would've thought that that was a failure. And now I'm just like, no, that was just what we needed for this season. You

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great at that time though, because it was perfect for the situation that everyone was in. You know what I mean? Like

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[00:39:38] Jen: Hmm.

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[00:39:43] Jen: you are genuinely so good at.

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[00:39:47] Jen: Like, it was so funny, I saw this thing in a, random Facebook group. Like it's a national facebook group, like for hairdressers, right? In, uh, actually it's New Zealand and Australia, and someone was talking about like financial struggles and twice in the comment section, people said, oh, you need to talk to Samara.

She lives on the Gold Coast. I can't remember what her salon name is, and da da da da da. Like, and it's like, yeah. You know?

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Or what happens in not living those things twice. I think I've did that a lot over years. Like, I was like, what if everybody leaves? And then I would kind of live that twice because there'd be constant fear that everyone would leave. Now I'm just like, it is what it is and I'm really deeply happy with both areas of my life because I've lived the bad. And like I said, you know, being able to flick through your past life and really like realize that you weren't the person that you wanted to be, and you were just so deeply unhappy. And then coming to a place where I'm completely the opposite now. It's. it's, it's for my personal life and my business, it's kind of been like this huge 360.

So the fact that you're like, personally, I'm just good. I'm just, I love my life.

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[00:41:56] samara: what I mean

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[00:41:57] samara: That's what I mean.

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Like, you, you have to have a comparative force to feel anything worth feeling. I.

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[00:42:46] Jen: Mm-hmm.

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[00:43:11] Jen: Yeah.

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[00:43:48] Jen: Yeah,

All right guys. The reality is now we both need to race to work 'cause we

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[00:43:55] Jen: but thank you so much for listening today, guys.