 All right guys, so today the vlog is Q&A. I got that bullenized with me. We're going to answer all of your guys' questions. So super excited. Let's get started. All right, so on today's show, if you want to ask a question in the future, make sure that you use the hashtag The Matt Beck Show or send a message, email, direct message. Direct message. Private message. If you want a message that you want anonymous, then just send it through like a direct message. Otherwise, I make a post on Instagram every week and you can ask the question in the comments below on that. And that is at Free Salon Education on Instagram. Okay, so... If you're close enough, send smoke signals. We'll learn. Yeah, exactly. All right, so let's see. I'm just going to go down the list of the questions on Instagram first, then I have a couple other questions as well as a bonus if we get to it. All right, Jonathan McFerrin on Instagram asks, he says, Hey Matt, I'm getting back into the business after being away for about six years. What advice do you have on ways to build a clientele? Thanks. This is something that we've definitely gone over quite a bit, but it's the biggest challenge in the industry. And I think the reason that people have such a big challenge with this is their... The patient level, like it just takes a while. So my thought to you would be the best way to build a clientele, and this is to everybody, this isn't even just to you, the best way to build a clientele is to kill it with every single person that sits in your chair. To make sure that you go above and beyond with every single guest, you will win them. By word of mouth, you'll get more clients from that. It's the best way to do it. The best way to build a clientele is based on your reputation. Any marketing class you take there, they'll tell you word of mouth is the best form of marketing. Yeah. You're going to spend... You could spend money on Facebook. That's fine. You can do a lot of other things. You can go hand out business cards. But really, I mean, do you keep a business card if somebody gives it to you? Probably not. But if you target your business card towards your Instagram and maybe have a really good portfolio on there, that's a different story. What I would do is just get to their Instagram and go follow them. I would look up people in your town, businesses in your town. Start getting involved in the conversations of the businesses in your town on their Facebook pages and become friends with people. I remember 10 years ago when I started, I would go to the bar or whatever, and that would be kind of the way that you would connect with new people. We handed out so many businesses, we would be left like piles of them, put them on like tables, and they probably just got thrown out there. They definitely got thrown out there at the end of the night. Exactly. That doesn't work. But if you think about it, the now a day way of going to the bar is social media. It's better because people can analyze you. I think we're getting ... What are we getting? He's going to just drop it off in the back. Okay. Packages? Yup. Okay. UPS. Sweet. Hopefully it's something good. So here's the deal. So the now a day way of going to the bar, doing things like that, is going on social media, go to different people's pages, think about how people look you up now. I know Christina is like, I've decided she's a professional at finding people on Facebook. She's a private eye. She literally, so I was going to get Flyers season tickets, right? So I ... Did she slap you out on that? Did she get them before you? No, but so I call the Flyers season ticket hotline, right? We start talking to this kid named Asher. So he is super nice ... Is it Asher Roth, is it? No, I don't know. Super nice kid from Philadelphia, right? He's got a big, strong Philadelphia accent. Sounded like a really nice guy was telling us all these benefits of having season tickets. And Christina, literally while that's happening, is finding him on Facebook to make sure that we trust him. It was like, it's that kind of thing. So think about if you get involved in chats in your town, I know there's a New Hope page where it's a group. So you can get involved in your town group, start making conversation. People start getting nosy. They start looking you up. All of a sudden they find out that you're a really good hairstylist, and now they want you to do their hair. That's another ... It's a roundabout way of doing it. Decide note on that. I was always somebody who held onto business cards, but I've never gone back to them. I have a jar. You have them, right? Yeah, I have them. But whenever I needed something, I wouldn't go to my pilot business cards and look through them and be like, oh, I met so-and-so at this bar or at this function. No, at Google. Yeah. So I don't want to be like hairstylist or body paint for cars or stuff like that. Yeah. Exactly. And that's why I don't even collect business cards anymore. It's not ... Right away, if you give me a business card, I will email you my information so that I now have your information and then I just throw the card away. Because I can't ... Because you end up with a pile of them, and no one else. I don't know. I'm sure droids have a similar function, but iPhones have an amazing feature on them where you create your contact. It will have your cell phone, your email, any business information that you need to have on it. Yeah. And then you can just share contact. Yeah. Exactly. It's a virtual business card. And then they already have it in their contacts. They have your name, they have who you're working with or what your company's name is that you've created, yada, yada, yada. It blows me away the amount of people that ask me for a business card. I know. Still. And on top of that, once you have their contact in there, you can add notes on that person. So if you're ... If I met you at IBS, I could put in Matt Beck, IBS, Freestyle in the Education booth, he interviewed me or wants to interview me next show, stuff like that. Right. It's amazing. Yeah. All right. Cool. So hopefully that helps. But my biggest thing would be take care of the person in your chair and be patient because it takes time to build up, but this business, and I'm going to say it forever, the only way to be successful in the hair business is to find a place that you love and stay there because as soon as you start moving around, you lose your clients and you have to kind of start over. Yeah. I never understood that. Like when I first started in school, everybody was like, oh yeah, such a nice profession. You can just like get up and go. I'm like, not really. I mean you can. If you want to make 20 grand a year forever. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I guess theoretically you could bounce from chain to chain and you're going to steadily have that. Right. But if you're an accountant, you have an easier chance of moving around. Everybody needs numbers done. You just work. Well, everybody needs their hair done too. That's true. I mean, it would be better if you had a job like, I don't know. But you could be working in Philadelphia for Urban Outfitters Corporate. And then be like, I really want to move to San Francisco or San Diego and then look for a company that's out there that needs an accountant, apply, get the job and then you're already making that salary or you know what salary you're really making. Exactly. You don't have to save up. This is not a salary business. All right. So Angela asks, she says, thank you so much for the information, educational videos. You're welcome. I was wondering if you have any advice for salon apprentices slash assistants. I'm about to graduate cosmetology school and start my apprenticeship at a hair salon. I'm going to be starting out doing shampoos and assisting the stylist by cutting foils, sweeping, et cetera. My goal is to become a stylist at this salon. Thanks. I think you're doing what you have to do. You want to be a stylist at that salon? I would be, here's what you don't do. I think that'll be better. Number one thing for me, when I know somebody's not going to work, if I see, don't play games on your phone, don't sit around doing nothing. Every second that you have free, you should be studying something that has to do with your job to help you grow. If she's going to be an apprentice, you're going to have grunt work. You're going to have the cleaning out the drains, cleaning it out like shampooing, assisting the other stylist. If you have free time, make sure you're staying next to that person that you're practicing. Find somebody that you look up to in this salon that is doing things right, is making money and watch them and learn. Don't just study how they do hair, study how they are with their clients, because there's a reason that they're that busy, and it probably has a lot to do with how they treat people in the salon. If you're being hired as an apprentice, make sure that you're working at a salon that is going to be working with you that it's not just hiring you as an apprentice, but it's using you just as an assistant. Right. Cool. Nailed it. Boom. Like that. So this one was funny. So this is Shayla Lynn Jones on Instagram says, do you guys have a daily self-care practice that you'd like to share in regards to taking care of your bodies away to show up fresh each day because energetically and physically this job can be quite demanding if one works full time doing hair. I actually developed one when I first started working here. Before I started working for you and Christina, I was the person who woke up five minutes before I had to leave and I was also five minutes from work. So that means I woke up 10 minutes before I was supposed to be working. Right. Yeah. And I just showed up and just like woke up there. It might have been like here. It might have been the age that was at, but I decided that I didn't want to be doing that anymore. Right. And I started waking up about an hour and a half early, getting a cup of coffee, making myself breakfast, waking up like in a peaceful like setting. Yeah. And then going to work. So that way I was like energizing. I was ready to go. That's a good, I mean, that's a good call. I'm somebody that is like 10 minutes late for everything. So I'm very, I'm always rushing. The reason I laughed during your question was not because of your question. It was because this is something I'm trying to work on this year and my life. I have been starting to get to work earlier, not get to work earlier, but starting my day earlier and then and getting some work done prior to coming here. And then, but the problem is I work super late till 2am, 3am sometimes, or sometimes I work till midnight and then I spend till 3am with Christina because I don't see her throughout the day as much. So it and I drink monster all day long, which is a terrible thing to do. So I'm trying to flip that. I do go to the gym now, which helps me feel good. The gym. I used to be like such a nice person, like insomnia, like to the max. Yeah. I started going to the gym like I had a regular bedtime. Like it's amazing. Well, I think I'm going to switch my gym time to the night time because I try to go in the morning and a lot of the times I have to get to work and I have to start filming or try to film before the salon opens. And the trick to that is that you got to leave 100% on the floor. Yeah. You have some people who are like go to the gym and they're like, okay, you need to like put like 75% effort in like that way you have energy for like the rest of the day. You have energy to rebuild. Right. You have to leave 100% on the floor because otherwise you're going to go home and you're going to be awake. Yeah. And I think that that's the challenge of me working out at night is because throughout the day I'm like go, go, go all day long and then by the time the night comes I just want to like. Yeah. But you shouldn't have a problem like leaving 100% on the floor. You don't do anything less than 100%. Well, so that's my shifts that I'm making. I cannot be somebody that tells you how to do daily self-care practices. My self-care practice is do whatever the hell I have to do so that I can keep working as hard as possible. And I'm probably from a health standpoint not doing well. So but that's changing and we're working on that. All right. So thanks for the question and the and the reminding that I need to do that today. All right. Any suggestions on educational events that you would recommend? Any suggestions on any educational events you would recommend? This is from Studio 151 Salon. It's a cool name for some reason. I think because it sounds like Studio 54. I don't know why. All right. So educational events, here's the thing, it's hard to find like it's not hard to find them. I would follow people on Instagram that you like and look for them to be doing events. I think nowadays you don't have to worry about. There's no like that scheduled events like to my knowledge like that I'd be like really excited about. But if you go out on Instagram, like you said, like you have educators like us, you have educators like the hair house, you have educators like all around that will do in salon stuff that will host stuff at their salon or at another desk like destination and just go have fun, enjoy, learn. Yeah. It's going to be like focused on the hair. Yeah. I don't think that there's a ton of companies out there now, not companies, but individuals doing education. So definitely just follow them on Instagram. You'll see the flyers. That would be my recommendation. I don't really have certain people that I'm like, oh, you should go see their education because honestly, I just don't, I'm not really watching their education that much. So I don't know. What you'd be looking for is different than somebody who's just had school or who may have been in the business for 30 years and is looking for something else. Right. Yeah. The education is definitely something that's very personal that you need to like figure out like what you're looking for and then find that person. For sure. All right. So Stephanie on Instagram, she says, hey, Matt, I have some questions. How do you keep track of your income and expenses? How do you budget for your business and how do you pay yourself? Do you do retail income slash expense a separate way than income from services? Okay. So this is actually a cool question because I've made some shifts since we started the salon and how the salon is now. So how do you keep track of your income and expenses? We have an accountant. So I recommend that any salon out there, we tried for three years when me and Christina first started the salon to do it on our own. It's a big, gigantic mess and an accountant keeps everything very organized. And it was always my goal to have a company that is a legit company and will, you know, all the records stay, they're filed the way that they should be. It's hilarious to me because my accountant every year is like, I can't believe you claim that much in tips because everybody's tips go in there from their credit cards. So she's like, I just can't believe that you do it. She's like, I'm happy that you do, but a lot of salons don't because it's a big tax. I mean, you get taxed a lot of money. Obviously everybody knows that. I mean, like, if you're going to plan on buying a house, that's only going to help. Yeah, but you want to buy a house and you want to be able to do different things. And and you're building a business and a business is something for me that you're growing a business. You never know what's going to happen. If you ever wanted to sell your business someday or you want to do whatever, I mean, you have to show everything that's coming in. How do you budget your business and how do you pay yourself? I have actually a follow up question before. OK. So we've always like, like, because you've had a question like this like before. Yeah, you're just like hiring account. And I'm like, I've always like people who've like come to me and said, hey, like, I know you don't own a salon, but do you have any advice for it? I'm like hiring account. What do you look for an accountant? I mean, I have an accountant, but I got one because my friend who owns a business had that accountant. And is he your dad an accountant? No, I thought your dad was an accountant. He works in finance. Oh, OK. He's not an accountant. He just does Dreyas taxes. Correct. But I can't sit with my dad for that length of time doing works like that. So so I've gone through we started off with a good accountant and then decided to take things on our own. Then I had a recommendation for an accountant from one of our clients here. And I started with them. It was the worst experience of my life. Like we went all of a sudden, like one year, they were like, you owe 15 grand in taxes at the end of the year. And and then the next year was eight grand in taxes. So then all of a sudden I'm 25 grand in debt to the IRS. And and then I got a good accountant and they cleared it all up. So really, it turned out that the accountant wasn't doing any of their work whatsoever and wasn't doing any write offs or anything, just getting through it. And so be very careful. You know, try somebody out for a year. If it seems crazy, they'll get a second opinion, for sure. Because for the the majority of it, like even if they do a terrible job, all your paperwork's done, so you can take it to somebody else to analyze it and make sure that they did it right, if it seems wrong. How do you pay yourself? I for the first five years of the business, I didn't pay myself from that. That's why I do education events and I teach. I started the free salon education website. I still to this day do not take a paycheck from any income that I do based on the salon. It's just not the way that I like to work. I like to reinvest, whether it's in the remodel that we're going to do or the trips that we take or the dinners that we do. I just reinvest everything back in to the business for now. I understand that that's not the way that everyone can work. It's just the way that it works for me. If I was going to pay myself, I would pay myself exactly like I pay everyone else because that would be how the business model would work. So if you're doing hair five days a week, I would pay yourself your commission for doing hair. And if there's stuff left over at the end of the quarter, then you could write yourself a check for that. But always write yourself a check so you don't owe money in the end. Do you do retail income slash expenses separate? This was something that a long time ago, I learned that maybe you should take a separate retail account from your main account. And then so every dollar you make from retail would go into one account and every dollar you make from services goes into the other so that you see the retail account constantly growing. Always thought this was a good idea. Never did it. But I definitely think it's a good idea. I mean, when we honestly, when we first started the salon, I couldn't even afford to buy retail. So we had literally like maybe 100 bottles on the shelf at a time. So, you know, it's just a whole different world. Now I could probably start that account and I would I would see it. But if you had like 1500 bucks to throw into a take home account or retail account and then you buy your retail from that and then take every bit of money that comes from your retail sales and put it back into that account, watch it grow and only buy your retail out of that account. It'd be kind of cool to do. It's definitely something that I'm I would like to do later. It'd be really good for like to show me people, the people that like have to see like see the income coming up. I mean, I learned it from a product company from Paul Mitchell. So I mean, it makes sense that they want to teach you that. So but I but I do think it's a good idea. All right, cool. So that's pretty much it. You feel good? I feel good. That's the Q&A. I hope you guys liked it. Let us know in the comments below. Also, if you haven't hit the subscribe button, hit the subscribe button and check out our videos pretty much every day. Yep. Follow that that bonus and follow us everything at free salon education. And don't forget, you can ask those questions right on social media or signals. Yeah, or smoke or smoke signals. We'll see you guys next week. Thanks.