The Masterclass We Wish We Had

Welcome to the Main Event, the ultimate podcast for hairstylists who are ready to build a thriving career and be a part of a supportive community. We're your hosts, Rachel and Tara, and we're so thrilled you're here. With over 40 years combined experience in the industry and multiple beauty businesses, we're your mentors to help you navigate your journey as a hairstylist where you feel supported, seen, and heard. This is your safe space to connect, relate, and elevate your career. We're here to keep it real. Sharing expert insights, personal stories and strategies to help you grow behind the chair and beyond. Whether you're just starting out or a seasoned pro, we've got your back. So turn up the volume and get excited because we're sharing the latest challenges and trending topics about our industry. Let us know in the comments if there's any topics you want us to cover, subscribe now and enjoy the show. Hey guys. I'm Tara. And I'm Rachel. And today we're gonna present to you the masterclass we wish we had. This is a little brief overview of everything that we're going to be covering topics wise within our masterclass. I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Rachel Ami. I've been in the industry for 30 plus years. I've owned salons. I also own a bridal business, and we also co-founded Maine NB Education together. I have taught for many companies all over the world, so I wanna just share with you some of the stuff I have learned along the way. And my name's Tara Dko. I own a bridal beauty business, onsite location for hair and makeup, for weddings and events. I co-founded Main Envy Education with Rachel and we have a podcast together called the Main Event Show. I went to college for marketing and psychology and I felt that there was a need that we needed to create. To bridge the gap for cosmetology students from graduation to greatness. I also work with Rachel at Loyalty Hair Launch, and I've worked in numerous New York Fashion Weeks and have been published in magazines and have worked behind the scenes in photo shoots. So we wanted to break down for you a little bit, tips for your interview process. You want to dress for the job that you want, not the job that you have. You want to come into the interview with a positive attitude and you wanna have questions prepared ahead of time, and we're gonna give you a few pointers from that as well. You wanna ask if there's room for growth for you. If you are looking for a job in a salon, the best piece of advice we can give you is go in and get a blowout, gauge the environment, see what the environment's like, see if the stylists are happy, see if they're busy, see the energy of the salon. A couple of questions that we suggest that you ask is if they have education and how often there's some salons that are so busy they don't have time to do education. do they have contracts when you're building a clientele, do they make you sign non-competes? We've been in salons that have made us do that before in the past. What type of commission structure? And by asking all of these questions, it's going to show that you're really interested in the job. It's going to prepare you in the best way possible for your interview and to show incentive that you really do care and you do wanna be there and be a part of their team. We have a few do's and don'ts for the interview process. You wanna arrive 15 minutes early. If you arrive late, it leaves a bad first impression and you only have one shot at getting a first good impression. You also wanna confirm the day before your interview. Sometimes minute salon owners, will have to move their appointment for clients to fit them in and accommodate their schedule. So it shows that you're going the extra mile to confirm that you're going to show up, and you're gonna show up at the right time and the right place. You're going to want to dress appropriately, so dress like you already have the job. Wear the blazer, wear the jumpsuit. Go in looking professional and be yourself. Make sure that your hair is done. Make sure that your makeup's done. Make sure that you don't have any, chipped polish as well. You are in the beauty service industry, so you want to look and dress the part, and when you look good, you feel good, which relays to my next point. You're gonna have a positive attitude and everything's going to perform better for you. And you also wanna be yourself. Authenticity shines through the most, and you don't wanna go in pretending to, you're gonna be somebody that you're not because people are going to be able to see right through that. You don't wanna show up late. You don't wanna cancel the interview last minute. You don't wanna underdress and you don't wanna have a bad attitude. In the next coming months, we'll have a podcast episode coming out all about the interview process, so be sure to look out for that. Now I wanted to talk to you about some tips to retain your clientele. So even if you're assisting and you're taking models, this is always good to learn and ingrain if you're shampooing how to talk to clients. But maybe you're starting at a salon and you are starting on a chair right away. These are some things that have helped me along the way. They are tried and true. So first thing you wanna do is remember their name. Me first and foremost, I forget names, so I have to write them down, so there's nothing wrong with that. But you wanna remember their name. You wanna address them by their name. You wanna walk up to them in a professional manner. You wanna introduce yourself, whether that's maybe shaking their hand, guiding them back, have a smile on your face, then you wanna bring them back to your chair. You wanna always, no matter how many years you're doing here, you wanna give a thorough consultation, even if this is your regular client. You wanna talk to them? I recommend not looking directly in the mirror and talking to them through the mirror, but actually either turning the chair or getting in front of them and looking at them and making eye contact with them. Something that always works for me is I will repeat back to them what they said. This is important because this way it's allowing them to know that you heard them, and maybe when you repeat it back, they might be like, Hmm, no, I don't want this. It's just another way to confirm that you're both on the same page. Also, if you're doing color, we all know color. People view color differently, so I highly recommend always bringing over your color book with you. Have them pick out where their eye goes for what shade of blonde they like. Sometimes we can get thrown a curve ball by a client who says they don't like ash or they don't want any gold, but yet nine times outta 10, they're gonna pick out that blonde that has gold. This way you just helped to make sure that you didn't have a problem down the line of having to now have a color correction. It also shows that you genuinely care about the client and making sure you're both on the same page. Also we have phones. I always recommend pulling up pictures. Maybe what they want, you know, realistically isn't for them or their hair type. Maybe they can achieve that in one visit, I. Pull up on your phone what you know you can do. It's always good to make sure that you're not promising something that you're not a hundred percent sure you can deliver. If you do deliver that great, your client's even happier than they were before. So be realistic with both of them. Also hear about how they wear their hair, their maintenance, what their life's like, their lifestyle. Make sure that this is a look that they're gonna be able to achieve on their own and maintain. You wanna make sure you write down all of their formulas. It's important to do that. Maybe you have a salon software, you can enter the formulas or you can keep your own record. But it's important to do that because they might come in the next time and want a slight change, and you need to remember what you did. On the cards, I like to write down key things about them personally. If they have a big birthday coming up, if they have their sons graduating or maybe their kids are going off to college, write that down. So the next appointment, and you can say, oh, how was your birthday? How did everything turn out? Or, oh, how was it moving Your son in college, they are gonna be so happy that you've remembered these details. And let's be honest, we can't remember every client's details. We have our own lives as well. So write it down. Review the people that are coming in ahead of time. When you're setting yourself up in the morning, review those little notes so you can be on point and remember, oh yeah, that's right. She had that. Sometimes you can remember these things, sometimes you can't, and there's nothing wrong with that. Those little touches will really make them feel valued and important, and it starts creating that loyalty to you as their stylist. Another huge thing, and I feel some stylists don't do this is really get them comfortable with pre-booking. Maybe you do have all this time in your book and you're just starting out and you know they can call and get in, but you don't wanna present yourself that way. You wanna say, I book up really quickly. Let's set it for five weeks. Now, I always say, even till this day, we'll put it in at least this way. You're in the book and if we need to move it, we can move it. It's a great way to just, number one, be professional and it's also good for you 'cause you can look at the weeks ahead and really know what revenue is gonna be coming in. You wanna be extremely professional. Think about customer service, think about how you would wanna be treated when you, if you were at a salon or when you go out, do those little touches. That really will warm you up. And it also kind of allows that customer to know, I'm getting this here. Maybe you do have time in your book and you can give an extra massage at the shampoo bowl. Maybe while they're colors processing, you offer them a complimentary hand massage. All those things will, again, help keep them and retain them in the salon. Another thing I recommend, and sometimes it's hard, we're not all salespeople, but talk about the products you used on them. Show them. I would usually pick three products. I'd have them on my station. I would talk about what I was using and why I was using it, and at the end I'd kind of feel their energy. If maybe they wanted to buy all of them, maybe I knew they were hesitant, I might be like, well, this product, this is what I think you should start with this. You're definitely gonna get, maybe it's a volumizer, this is gonna be the best for you. Maybe it's a heat protectant, have them buy that one product. They say that when a client buys a product. That you have more of an option of them retaining or view retaining them as a client. So if they bought the product, that means they trusted your opinion and they trust your work. So most likely they're gonna come back to you. So just a little thing at the end that can really bring you to that professional level of now you're recommending what you know works and it's a bonus because it's gonna help them to achieve that same look you've given them at the salon, at home, which then will in turn have them referring new clients. So just keep in mind, remember how people will remember how you made them feel. They feel important, valued. They feel like you genuinely care. They will wanna stay with you and they'll wanna help support your business, which means they'll wanna help send people your way. So with all of this in mind, we want to introduce to you our Summer Intensive Mentorship Program. You get real practice, real feedback, and real transformation where we help you not with just one, but two mentors, and we elevate your skillset in just five days, and we felt the need to create this program because after you get your cosmetology license, it's hard to get into a salon that has education consistently. You will get daily live demos. It's an interactive and fun creative workshop with right and left-handed mentors. You get to apply what you learn and it's a small, intimate setting. So we're gonna be able to help you along the way to give you tips and tricks and suggestions on how to help with your body ergonomics, your hand placement and positioning and, proper, proper angles with cutting. So we wanna help you elevate your skillset in just five days. So our first day we'll be mastering color theory with confidence. All of us styles can relate to when you first get started. Having to formulate can be very nerve wracking. So we are gonna cover basically everything that you need to know about what color does and what it does not do. We'll go over the percentage of gray so you can formulate going over their natural level, understanding the underlining pigment. We do this class where we do go off of the European numbering system. So any salon you're going in, you'll be able to utilize the skills you're gonna learn. We also have a fun interactive class that we do that'll help go over what cancels what out, what you would need to use to fill all of these fun things. So it's very interactive. It's fun. And we will go over formulating. How would we do that? We'll come up with certain scenarios and kind of go over what we would choose. Now we all know as hairstylist you can choose a million different one things, but this is gonna be the core of it. This way. It takes away some of the stress and also to know what developer strength to use and why, what you should do if you're toning what you need to do, and also talk about even lifting. So it's really important to understand those levels and what that means. On the second day, we're going to show you one of the most highly requested haircuts and cutting techniques. We're going to teach you the foundations and the core techniques for the most popular haircut. We're going to give you a real demo and you're going to have time to refine your skillset. We're also going to help train your I. As to where to give more volume or remove more weight we're going to help you, create the style and finish it because you can do a great finishing style, but if you don't have a great haircut to mirror that, some people aren't going to walk away from your chair happy. So knowing the importance of how to do both of those things. Is really going to elevate your skillset. And on the third day, we have styling and updos, as we had both mentioned. We both have bridal businesses, so we want to be able to share with you the proper prep and curl techniques and pinning placement. We wanna give you that breakdown of a thorough consultation with a bride. If you're interested in doing weddings or just in general with a client. We wanna show you how to analyze client inspiration photos like a pro. Sometimes in the beginning when you first start out, you don't really know how to break down an inspo photo and you kind of just wing it. I know that I did that in the beginning. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. But now I have a roadmap and a blueprint on start to finish, on how to create these types of looks. So we're going to give you a demo of one of the top requested bridal styles, and then you're going to have hands on time where we get to walk around and help you and elevate your skillset in bridal. Day number four. So this is one of my favorite classes. I really enjoy it. You will get so much out of it. We are gonna go over the hand tied extension installation method. Now there's many methods we are gonna be going over. One of the methods that I use continuously, I feel like it is the most secure and is the least damaging to your client's hair. So some of the things we're gonna cover is how to do this consultation, how to sell it to your client. We're gonna talk about placement, where you would place the WAFs and why. Have questions to ask, like, do they wear their hair up? Do they wash it all the time? We're gonna talk about how to anchor it in. Securely so that you don't have people coming back with little corners peeking out. We're gonna map it out for you 100%. We're gonna go over how you would maybe price for this service, who your ideal client is for this service, and this class does come with a little kit, so you'll be able to go home and practice and continue it even more so you can be fully confident with it Also, each class does come with, its each individual certificate. So why that's important is if you. Haven't interviewed yet. That's something that you might wanna bring in with your resume to show just how driven you are and how much this is your industry and you're in love with it. As an owner, that shows me a lot of dedication, and that would be somebody I would wanna hire. If you're new, it's also good to just share that with your owner, that you've taken this class, or maybe you approach your owner about this class. It's something that is definitely gonna elevate your skills across the board. And on the last day we have confidence boosting marketing and career prep. We have a day where we kind of recap and do teachbacks of what you've learned throughout the week, and if you have questions, we are able to help you on whatever topic that you need. You'll have a live q and a with not one, but two mentors. You get to connect and network with all the other stylists that have done the mentorship. Program with you. We are a firm believer in collaboration over competition, and you never know who you meet and who's going to open a door for you. So you're gonna walk away feeling confident, clear, and ready to launch your career. And also you're gonna have a chance to review your progress. And if there's anything extra that you need help or support with, we offer coaching. And we're here to support your journey throughout your career. We created this program because we wish we had something like this in the beginning, and we created it with you in mind. We want to be able to help you network and open all doors and new opportunities for you. You can take your career anywhere. It's what you put into it is what you get out of it. And again, we are a collaboration over a competition approach. We have that abundance mindset where there's. Plenty of opportunity for everybody. You have not one but two mentors and you have someone that is right-handed and left-handed, which is so important because I'll give you some perspective. I took a class, about six years ago, and I am left-handed. So with that being said, my mentor at the time that I went to this education class was right-handed. And I had questions and he didn't know how to no relay back what to do. And I was left figuring it out. And I left frustrated more than inspired and motivated. And I didn't feel confident, so I just kept practicing and practicing and practicing. And eventually I figured it out. But you could imagine that I spent all this time trying to, trying money and money and. To try and figure this out, and I couldn't, and I was really, really frustrated. So I don't want that to happen to you, which is again, why we wish we had someone like us in the beginning. Our goal is really to make sure that you are feeling comfortable and confident. We've all been there. I remember as a new stylist starting out and taking education on my own, and it can be very hard and sometimes overwhelming. You're not sure. Are you gonna be the newbie? Are you gonna be the one that doesn't get it? With our classes and this whole program was to put that all to the side here. We can talk about anything and everything. We encourage you to ask questions. We encourage you to let us know where you're maybe feeling not so confident in. And if we can do that by the end of these five days and have it where you feel more confident in your skillset and just approaching clients and being able to talk, then we have succeeded. We are here for you. Every step of the way. So this is just the start. We have tons of education that continues going up all the way to extreme master levels. So we are here for your journey. We wanna support you, we wanna help build you up, and we wanna help hone your skills. Imagine just elevating your skillset in five days. So I want you to take a journey with us and I want you to close your eyes for a second. And I really want you to dream big here, and I want you to ask yourself these questions. Where do you see yourself this time next year? What would your ideal day look like? Where do you see yourself working? Are you in a salon? Did you start that bridal business you've been thinking about? Are you doing extensions? Are you in your dream salon? Really think big here and write it down. I'll give you guys a minute. So what if you could be there and be on track a year or less from now? What if you could have the support community tools and resources to make you feel empowered and ready to be behind the chair? What if we could fast track your career? To success. How would that change your life? We wanna be able to help as many stylists as possible, because like we said, we wish we had somebody like us in the beginning, and that's why we wanna give back today and share with you I, our summer intensive mentorship program. Just to go over what we talked about, we have five different classes. So each day you will learn a new skill, starting with color formulation, going into the most requested haircut that you'll get behind the chair, and also talking about styling and updos. So this also helps to teach you structure and how to place everything that it will hold. So it takes away the stresses of actually doing any extra styling. Then we have our. Hand tied extension class extensions are great. This is gonna be a skillset that maybe the salon isn't doing yet, and this could be something that these clients become just your own in the chair. And then we'll wrap up with going over everything, talking about some marketing and social media, and making sure that when you leave this class, you, no question is unanswered. All this is so important, especially getting you off on the right foot. So our offer to you today is you get all of this for a value of 9, 9, 9 7. So you're not going to pay that. You're going to pay 1497. And for the first four people that sign up, we already have a few that have signed up. Mm-hmm. They will get exclusive access to us to help you build your portfolio with a photo shoot opportunity. Go over social media and photography tips and tricks, and to have the chance to be a guest on our podcast show, we do have limited spots available because we want to make sure that the people that we are working with really win and truly feel taken care of throughout the week because we know what we needed was support and ongoing education, throughout the beginning of our journey. I encourage you guys to email us with questions. If you have any concerns, we would love your feedback and we encourage you to follow along on our podcast. We share episodes weekly on Mondays when we are off from our salon days. And we would love to follow along and support your journey. So thank you so much for your time. That's a wrap on this episode of The Main Event. We're all about empowering our community and supporting each other, so if you love today's conversation, share it with a fellow stylist and let's grow together. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review and connect with us on Instagram. At the Main Event Show or our YouTube both linked in our show notes below, got a topic you want us to cover, send us a dm. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time, keep creating, keep growing. And remember, you're a part of our family now.