Pulling together a vibrant community of heartfelt hairdressers at The Island on the Gold Coast on Monday February 19 was a room of more than 200 salon professionals driven by a day of connection, true character and being honest and kind to ourselves as we welcome the salon life of the future, writes Cameron Pine.
CPR hair has been on a journey and evolution for some time now, to move beyond the perceived one dimension of a product supplier and become a coach, mentor and friend of the entire salon industry. Under the guise of ‘Salon of the Future’, CPR’s solution to tackling the real issues and current opportunities in the industry was to get the country together with leading coaches and mental health advocates and talk about it using real life stories and messages, belief and a sense of gratitude every step of the way.
“We are all here to share the love that you are – the love you have in your heart and the love that we are sharing. That’s the take home from me today,” said CPR CEO Cass Donnelly. Compered by Jarred Stedman from Mocha Group, Jared added a fun and relaxed approach between speakers while keeping the formalities as brief as possible, so more time could be spent interacting and soaking up more than 5 hours of solid information and networking opportunities.
Starting the conference with a fun exercise that had the entire audience standing to demonstrate the difference between being ‘creative’ and ‘not creative’ – the simple exercise with music and moving to the beat and one with silence and free of movement summarised the active energy that the hairdressing industry thrives on and how CPR is attuned to what it really is that hairdressers and salon owners need.
“Creativity, confidence and self-expression for me is the foundation of the hairdressing career. Because we are creative people, we didn’t feel right without the music, did we? We were all uncomfortable because we are creative and we need to move and connect,” Cass said.
CPR approached the conference from a different perspective than usual by tying every touch point back to the ‘Holistic Salon Service’ and asking around the room for real stories from the audience about why they decided to be a hairdresser.
Rather than just bombard the audience with an overwhelming amount of information like many conferences can do, CPR promised to develop a 12-month plan following the event to celebrate each and every individual and salon – building the content into service tips and training plans that lasted the entire year.
“So there’s these movements that we’re going to be going through today so we all finish together – we’ve got about an hour closing and sharing and a big group discussion where you can talk on the microphone to the audience as well. So that’s going to be a really powerful moment to really declare what you’re committed to over the coming months,” Cass said.
Encouraging everyone in the room to speak, especially if they haven’t in a room of 200 people before, summarized the notion that we all have a chance to show who we are, and the industry is not about hierarchy, instead togetherness.
The first speaker of the day was Lisa Conway and was all about ‘filling your cup’, a true reflection of her past and current personal journey, Lisa gave a heartfelt insight in why being your authentic self is crucial for success and survival, adding a little vulnerability to the piece as well.
“If your cup is empty you can’t give much. Only three per cent of businesses only make to one million in revenue, less than one per cent make it to five and well for me it’s not really about the money – you could make five million and waste it all or burn out,” Lisa said. “There are two types of salon owners. One that implements, others that struggle to implement.”
Prioritising ourselves to avoid burning out, the power of manifestation and the honesty to admit when you need help were good lessons for future sustainability.
In exciting creative inspiration to balance the heartfelt topics and business inspiration, CPR also launched the very first preview of the Autumn/Winter collection – Awaken. Developed in conjunction with Paul and Paul salon, Paul spoke of the importance of creative inspiration and putting yourself up for creative pursuits to inspire staff and your own path. The collection featured bold haircuts, colours from copper to blonde and textures and gender fluid silhouettes – a real break away from the everyday, aimed at inspiring all client profiles.
Not only this, but to inspire the emerging artists in the industry is a core passion of the CPR family.
“I wanted to create something with the style of CPR but something that would appeal to every type of hairdresser. And that I hope also inspires you to go back to salon and do more creative hair again, impress clients and show them what you can do,” Paul said.
The next speaker from Scruples Hair and Beauty, Sandra Bayer, told her own personal journey of discovery and how she built a large salon and personal brand, how she became immersed into the salon environment – the evolution of the hairdresser and more ways to ignite your team.
Tips on how to empower the next generation and the touch points she’s used to build a large team were also used.
Thanks to Comfortel furniture the back of the conference room featured a real live salon set up where guests were taken on a journey of how to better greet clients, take the best pictures maximising lighting, angle and iPhone features while enhancing their personal guest journey back at the salon as well – from front desk, top greeting to ensuring everyone walking out of the salons becomes an advocate to share their work and the best images are on display.
Shakira Jade Business Coach is an entrepreneur and business owner who built a well-known brand – Hair Candy, from just a few products and long-time dream into more than $4 million per year.
Shakira’s story was one of sacrifice and scaling – also having owned a salon, it’s a story of pivoting from your real purpose, adaptability and encouraging the audience to expand their ideas and opportunities by expanding their thinking and realising. “You are much more than a hairdresser,” Shakira said.
Talking through her background in brand-building and creating a clear plan for the future, Shakira also gave insights into how to increase your e commerce blueprint, improve strategy and to create clarity in your business to move forward.
Julie Gillespie centred her approach around kindness and wellbeing and seeing the person and not the problem to transform the way we connect and tap into the multitude of mental health resources available to us. Julie encourages more businesses to have a more integrated mental health and wellbeing approach, which considering the high touch point basis for hairdressing
“The cure for burnout isn’t and can’t be just self-care. It has to be all of us caring for each other,” Julie said. “Your workplace is a safe space for people to come to, to understand how conversations are what connects us, your salon is full of functional and compassionate humans.”
Listening with intention and fully debriefing with all staff and clients is the best way to add value to both the business and the team morale, and Julie shared her invaluable tips.
Dario Cotroneo is a multi-award winning hairdresser and educator that almost needs no introduction. Known for his impeccable cutting skills, street-based creativity and strong architectural lines in hairdressing, he’s turned his energy to an empathetic and informative presentation of how to align skill with beliefs and minimise our doubts and control our mind to improve our work.
“You can’t be what you can’t see – you have to eliminate threats in your system and evaluate your life – it’s upgrading your operating system, just as we do with our phones and technology,” Dario said. “The brain is not designed for the success, its designed for survival – success is about doing things that are uncomfortable.”
Dario discussed that by the time we are 35 our box brain becomes our identity – but by the time we meet that age we become hard wired attitudes that can be hard to shift.
“These attitudes, beliefs and perceptions that function just like a computer,” Dario said.
When a person decides to change and go against five per cent of their conscious brain they can think positively all they want but the thought will never make it past the brain stem. If you’re not using your thoughts to define a new future of your life – you are left with the memories of the past and you will become predictable in your life.
Linking back to the brand team, including Cass’s approach to harnessing emotion and gratitude for patient journey, the aspect of learning from each other continued to be the overarching theme of the Salon Forum.
“We are all coming together closing today and we are going to be back here in 12 months time so we can reflect on these visions we have implemented over the next 12 months. It’s going to be a really powerful moment to declare what you are committed to over the next year to change and grow,” Cass said.
All guests took home a customised Holistic Salon Service booklet designed to be a step by step and pictorial guide to unleash the approach and proven simple concept of both in-salon excellence and in between salon visits.
Built on the premise that each guest visit is a masterpiece, a canvas of excellence and an opportunity to unleash the full creative potential of your salon team, whilst engaging the community to newfound levels of loyalty and connection.
The book helps to identify missed connections, optimise first impressions and how to maximise your digital presence. Linking back to the salon on the floor where guests were showed how to take good -in salon pictures using angles and opportunities, every level of hairdresser left with a better understanding of their areas to improve but most importantly further signified their key role in the salon of the future.
A sound healing Gong journey ended the day whereby some guests lay to the ground to really sink in and better realize their manifestations.
With an emotional finish, Cass Donnelly confirmed, “The journey for salons is an exciting proposition for us at CPR, today was really about revolutionising the salon experience.”
Overall Cass Donnelly’s enthusiasm for the industry was most importantly to share the love we all have for the industry and pave the way for our future, together. The Forum instinctively formed a sense of ownership we haven’t seen in the industry for quite some time.
For more information visit www.cprhair.com
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