 on education.com. Here was splitting hairs episode 39 and a half technically. Yeah, technically for you guys it's 39 for us it's 39 day job. Yeah, it's actually going to haunt me because you know that we're so excited about getting to we're never going to one year 52 like or 40. But we we did the episode 39 last week. We work hard. Yes, we did work very hard. It was another nighttime episode. And then what happened was we my computer died up. So it didn't blow up. It didn't blow up, but it looked like it blew up. No, I didn't see the screen. I said it still didn't look like it exploded. No, it didn't look like but it looked like it fried from the inside. Yes. So it's destroyed. Technically when we get to 51 will be at our year mark. Technically, but we I mean, no, because it's not but we would be doing it for a year episodes that I don't want to talk about this right now. But we had speaking of one year, I just look this week is one year that my ombre videos been up. Really? Yeah. One year ago, we started with that. Wow. I had my first video. I figured that would have been one year already. Like just like last week when I went to go check the totals on it, it said 51 weeks. Wow. And or no, it was I was going through my old Instagram pictures. I'll post that up on Facebook today then. That's cool. So so check out our the rest of our YouTube videos. We're putting out YouTube videos constantly free education videos for hairstylists. If you're just tuning in for the first time. Welcome. Welcome. We've been doing this now for 40 weeks, pretty much. And, you know, keeping trying to keep it consistent every week. When I missed it, like when we missed last week, I tried so hard, I really wanted to put out that episode. But the challenge was Drea's camera and her audio didn't work. So that threw it off. We should have done it like a silent film. Yeah. Where you show her and then put it up. Well, that's basically what happened. I was editing it and then I I flipped to Drea's camera and she's just like, looking off into space, the words are going. I'm like, what is happening? So her vocals didn't work and and my computer screen went. So I didn't get it out. And now it's like, it's basically time for this episode. So, you know, we're moving in 39 and a half. And and we'll just keep moving forward that way. We have Robert Chromines interview this episode. So again, I'm very excited to to have that on here. It was, you know, a cool moment for me to be able to sit down with somebody that inspired me early on in my career. So we have that coming up. So stay tuned for that. I want to thank Millennium Systems International. That was actually where I did the interview with Robert was at the experience in Fort Lauderdale, their big conference of the year. My favorite thing of the year. And then Demand Force. We did talk about them last week, but they've just done a lot for our business. If you guys don't know about Demand Force, check out DemandForce.com because they it's basically a website that goes through Millennium and helps customer service in your business. It helps get you reviews. It helps confirm your clients via text, email. There's just it does all the stuff so that we don't have to. Yeah. To make sure that we're just in so much more contact with our guests. Yeah. I mean, everybody is commenting on loving getting the text message confirmations. Everybody is. We don't even write business cards really anymore. Like with the with the next reservation on it. We don't even write them because they let them know two, three times as it's leading up to it that it's time for them to come. And then if we do the confirmation calls us another time. Yeah. So it's it's amazing. So that's been really good. And I checked out the report because they give you reports on DemandForce. And I think it's brought in in the first month, like $1,000 in revenue. So that's huge for you guys as hairstylists bringing in clients that haven't been in in a long time getting them back. And then, you know, and that's just going to keep growing. So I used to look at DemandForce like it was so expensive. But when you look at the fact, it brought in $1,000 in a month. And that was only month number one. Right. You know, it's just going to keep working. So DemandForce is cool. I'm glad that they're on board with us. Mizetani scissors on Shop FSC. Check out if you guys want new scissors, then use splitting hairs, all one word. As a as a code, you'll get 20% off of anything in the store. So yeah. So I like the people that are dedicated to this show. I feel like, you know, I just it was the chair thing and didn't pick it up. Nice. So people are dedicated to this show and actually watch this ridiculous. I like to give them hook them up. So that's gonna be really annoying. Stand is salon goods. Thank you for allowing us to sit in these beautiful chairs and our guests at the salon to do that as well and freestyle systems for the hanging blow dryers that are awesome. Again, I said we have the Robert Croming interview coming up. Tools of the week. We have a cool tool that Mika sent us on the blow dryer. Okay. So this this blow dryer is it's cool because we've we've shown the blow dryer before. But the thing I love about Amika, they just sent us a new look. So their blow dryers are kind of the same technology. They have different models. But this one is the same as the other one. But it just has a whole different packaging. So what we were saying is it's cool because if you have a blow dryer that you love, but maybe you want to change up the the look or the image of it. Maybe a guy likes a different look than a girl would. I don't know but I like this look of this blow dryer a lot. Black with the gold. It's a really flat finish to it. Really cool. So it's got the negative ion positive ion flip so you can decide what type of ions you want. The positive ions kind of help blow the cuticle out and get the water out in the moisture and then the negative ions seal the cuticle. So really cool iron. So check out love amika.com and pick up that. I think I was talking about it last time that hopefully that they'd take a step towards what Converse does and actually allows you to customize your own designs that can be prayed on your own blow dryer. I think that'd be pretty sweet. Yeah, that would be cool. And I think we were saying like that I think the industry will definitely move that way. Oh, and hairdressers love having their name on stuff. Salons are getting products with their name. And I think blow dryers just being able to put your own label and logo and all that would be really cool idea. So if anybody has that idea, I don't want to work on it. But it would be you already did it. You just put your sticker on everything. Right. Yeah, like or just order a bunch of stickers and stick them on it. Right. So the other thing is I was talking to Robert Reed. I've been having meetings with him every week. He came out with Ergo brushes, right? Love him. So and he's such a cool guy, super nice. And so and I love talking to people that every time I get off the phone with him, I'm like, wow, I just learned like a bunch of stuff. Like he's just been in the industry for a long time. He knows a lot of stuff. So he came out with this brush that we've talked about in past episodes. So I'm not going to do a review on that in this in this episode. But the cool thing that he showed me and this is just a little quick tip is and some of you probably know this. But if you don't, it's cool because we used to use the brush cleaner to clean out all the brushes and scrape it. And there's actually a ceramic coating on this that if you start scratching and damaging, then it's not good for the cuticle of the hair. So he doesn't recommend that you do that. What he said was take your damp towel from your guest that you've already used and just put it over the brush and wipe across the brush. And it takes out all of the hair in the brush. And I, I was like, he told me on the phone, I'm like, okay, I'll try that out, whatever. So I'm in this lawn, and I finished and I had all this hair in this brush. And I took the towel and wiped it over. And I was like, are you kidding me? Like this? All these years, I've been like poking at it going through and they're still looking for the hair. Yeah. And now you just take the damn towel and you just wipe it on there and it works. So that's a pretty cool thing. And the other thing I like about doing that is it wiped all of the residue from the hairspray off the brush as well. So you got a really nice clean brush spray with some disinfectant, wrap it in saran wrap and you're good to go. Bam, brand new brush for your next guest. So check that out, guys. That's a fun tip, right? Enjoy it. Enjoy. Do you remember? I just I like, you know, ergo, they think of the ergonomics and all that stuff. But when I had my when I handed it to my guest the other day, you were standing right there, I was just talking about the brush and how it feels. And you know, with the grips and all that stuff. And it's great. And I handed it to my guest and her reaction was fantastic. I wish we were filming because it would have been a review. She's like, oh my God, I like this. This is fantastic. I'm like, all right, calm down. It's a brush. It's fantastic. She got really excited. Well, I just talked to Robert. I just for it. Last week, I think I'm going to start retailing them here. Nice. I mean, they're a great tool. There's just no reason not to have them. Right. So and he's got a really cool program. So I'm going to check that out. And I want to have them on shop FSE for hairdressers to buy some people that's me about that. I'm working on it. But yeah, I just thought of something. No, no, go ahead about the brushes. Just the little bit of discovery that I made this week with the main purpose for the gigantic one. You know, we all have those guests that have kind of I see that that the big guy, the captain caveman. At first, we were just using it because we wanted to take more hair off of the head, like take bigger sections and blow dry faster. But then I discovered this week. My favorite use for this brush is those guests that have curly hair that you're blowing out to try to get it smooth. You know, if you use really even just the one size down from this, when you're trying to round brush it, their hair still picks up so much curl anyway, because it's got the natural curl to its texture. Right. And I've noticed that this guy is so big, it really helps because you still get the really smooth. You'll get that little bit of kick at the end to make it look like a nice polished finish, but it's almost too big for the hair to actually form its own curl again. So I was doing it. I was like, Oh my God, this is so much easier because normally I'd have to go back and like do it with the hair over the brush and then go back with it under the brush to get that curl out of it and keep it smooth. And with this, it was just one step. I blame the size. So I'm thankful for it. You blamed it. The size. There you go. So that's how I put it. We, uh, this brush, when I was talking to Robert, my big concern right now is if I sell this at hairdresser cost on the shop FSE, then consumers could buy it at that cost as well. And I want to, so now I'm working on trying to advance shop FSE so that you guys will have your own log in as a professional because before for a $500 pair of scissors, if a consumer is going to log on and purchase a $500 pair of scissors, then good for them for wanting to spend that much money on a scissor to cut hair at home. For this, it's a whole different level of shopping. So I want to make sure that consumers are not on our site, hairdressers get it for the right cost and consumers would still pay a retail cost for it. And then we last week on episode actual 39, you talked about your love of Candy Shaw. I did. At great extent. Yes. So why don't you, maybe we should simplify that, but the Bollybox, which we don't have in front of us either. Uh, it's because it's in use right now. Right. Um, all right. So we got the Bollybox. I watched the DVD. Sure. Yeah. I loved, I loved the DVD for a couple of reasons. One, and I got to say just, I mean, all hairdressers have a little bit of ego in them, I guess. And it, it made me feel good because I feel like it helped validate me because when I put together the Bolly-Age videos, it was really just what I came up with because it's what made sense to me. Right. And to watch hers, our techniques are so similar in so many ways. It made me feel good because it let me know that I really did do what I was doing based on, you know, head shape and the fall of the hair and all that stuff. So that in and of itself, I, I love the DVD. And I absolutely love the product. Yeah. I mean, it's such an awesome, awesome consistency with that clay base to the lightener. It, it helps to diffuse itself. So it takes some of that pressure off of getting such a precise line in it when you're working because just what it's made of, it helps to, to soften that or diffuse that color a little bit for you. The tools are fantastic. That brush, I've never used a brush like it. I didn't know what I was going to think before I started with it. And now I can't imagine trying to do it with some like trying to work with this product with another type of brush. The bristles are dead on the palette. Super cool. I mean, it's, it's a variation of doing the same thing like with the back of the hand, but it does end up being a little bit neater. Yeah. You don't have to lighten around your hand. So you don't need to invent your glove anymore? Oh, I'm still gonna. People need options. What's in here, Thad? What are we missing? You're missing the paddle, the brush, and the clips. Okay. So everything. Missing. So there's. So. Well, I grabbed the lighter and put that in there. It has DVD. But the, so there's a lot of different cool products that check out the last episode, episode 38 with the interview with Candy Shaw who created this product. I did an interview with her also at the Millennium Experience. And, you know, she's, she's such a cool person. I love her product. She allowed us to put it on shopfse.com. So, you know, and a lot of people have been taking advantage of it because it's just a cool, it's a cool product. And we've definitely seen the benefits. Oh my God. Yeah. So, so definitely cool. If you get a chance, check out the Bolly Box. It's, it's a cool kit. I think it's $119. So just. We'll hit on some of the other stuff that we've done with it later. Yeah. And Brian's going to create some videos. We just did a tip the other day. I actually, after this show, I got a couple of men's cuts. I'm going to go edit those videos, get them on YouTube for the weekend. And then next week I want to pump out a ton of videos because I'm going away on vacation. So I want to have videos just constantly flowing through YouTube. When you leave. I leave next Saturday. Okay. So we can do splitting hairs. So we're going to do splitting hairs. The tough thing is going to be the week after that. So I got to figure out, maybe I'll put out clips from our past. From 39. Yeah. Just break it up. Do like the greatest hits. Yeah. Greatest hits. Yeah. Exactly. So, or I could just put out an interview, my interview with Martino, we could do a quick sit down next week or something to lead into that. Or you're something that. Yeah. So. Get step five. Let's talk about that later. What? Did I get step five coming? He got step five coming. So we don't have to answer that question. People have been wanting more steps from you. Well, now that we're able to go back to Friday morning filming that frees up our Wednesdays. So now we can start filming again. Yeah. We were doing splitting hairs on Wednesday nights. It's weird in the summer right now. Yeah. My son's not in school. We're busy here in the salon. I mean, the salon's rocking right now. And so we've just been trying to toss around when we can film and when we can't. But we're good. We're getting there. Working on it. We started a new thing this week. So why don't you explain that? It came out of nowhere. Yeah. We were filming Wednesday night. And we try to get as many things in as possible. Like we have a very set amount of time to get this done. You know, we close at seven, which means we close whenever the last person leaves. And then. Right. All right. Let's get everything set up. And we get everything set up. And we have very, very ambitious. Like we're going to do four quick videos tonight. And then we go to do it. And it ends up. We do like one. Yeah. And one of the ones Matt wanted to do something on dry cutting, like focusing on just that. So we're thinking about it. You know, can you get 14 steps of dry cutting out of it? Is there a need for it? And we decided a much simpler, but equally effective way to do it is going to be we're going to start tackling subjects going through with a breakdown of the five main points of how, why, when. What, when, why, where and how. Yeah. That. I had to say it over and over. He did. It took a million takes. My problem is every time I say it, I put who in there as well. Yeah. So I can't say it. There's my idea. Why, what, when, where and how. And we're going to break down. And we're going to answer those questions for each subject. So we'll start with dry cutting. And then eventually, you know, we'll get a style one. Get a or a specific kind of style one. Yeah. You know, you can do one for every single type of color. You can do a breakdown of Ombray, you can do a breakdown of Bahlia. I've been thinking about how the intro is going to go, like showing the words and stuff. I think it's going to be really cool. So it'll be a cool series. I hope you guys enjoy that. We'll start working on it probably next week. We'll definitely do the dry cutting one. And then, and then we'll move on from there. And, you know. Here it goes saying we're already, we're stacking the things we're going to be doing. We're never leaving Wednesday. No. Because that's the funny part is that's why it's a set amount of time. Because Matt has to leave by nine. Yeah. And so it's like, it's eight fifty seven. I get ready to start filming. Let's go. Yeah. So, all right. Cool. So that's pretty much what's on the lineup, what we got coming up. Let's go through. Do you have those questions at all from Facebook? No. From where I ask. I have questions on Facebook. All right. Well, then why don't you talk about your, let's talk about your transformation or your color correction that you did. Okay. And then then we'll move into questions from social. Okay. Actually, let's, you talk about your color correction. We'll move into Robert Cromings. Okay. And then we'll do questions from social. Okay. Then we'll spin the wheel. Then we'll do hair all day today. All right. That's cool. So, first thing I, I guess I enjoyed using the Candy Shell Bolly Box. I had two major color corrections last week. If you follow me on Instagram, you actually got to see them. And the first one was, my guest was in for an ombre, new guest. And I'm sitting here and this girl comes walking up and I knew she was my guest because I was the only one that had someone coming at that time. And she comes walking up and her hair's up and she's just blonde, super blonde. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, what is she here for? She comes in, she sits down. I take her hair down and then realize like this is a horrible, horrible, just tragedy of color on her head. And I'm sure all the pictures like popping up somewhere on the screen now. So I'll send it to you. Where do you want? Where do you want the picture? In between. Okay. She basically, she had gone to get ombre twice. Two different salons. The first one just took everything from her parietal up and basically just bleached her roots to ends. The second time she went in for ombre because they left her completely natural, all dark underneath. Second time she went in, the hairdresser just foiled a straight line of blonde across the back of her hair. So it was just a straight line. And it was just awful. So I found that line where they had kind of left her sectioned off. I went through the lower half of the hair and just did a really heavy-handed ombre using the Bolly Box because I knew one thing that I like about that lightener is it does have good control. It has good timing even with, you know, the higher developers, the 30 and the 40, you know, I feel, I, I guess I feel like it never shoot way beyond I mean for it to go. Yeah, he's 40 with the yesterday. Yeah, I did too. And the hair feels fine. It gets light without going crazy on you. And then up top, I basically did the opposite. She had the blonde, so I went in, I found a color that was pretty dead on with her natural and I created the negative space. You know, the V that I create with lightning when I do Bollyage, I pulled out my V section and then just painted in the dark in the middle so that it looked like the V was there. And when it was done, she left with an ombre. She was super happy. It was awesome. And then the next day, another girl comes in. She's just in for a single color and a haircut. I'm like, all right, cool. I'm going to end my week. It's Sunday. Week's over. It's fine. Almost done. She comes in. Her hair is also up in a bun. I'm like, all right, so what are we going to do? And she takes the bun out. The fad was working right next to me. And this thing just unrolls like a cartoon. Like she had the longest hair ever. And it's all like one length almost and just thick, thick, thick. And I'm like, of course. Was she your natural nine? Was she what? No, that was yes. Yes, that was her. Naturally, she was at least a nine. I was I was so angry at her because I want to be that blonde. She had a half inch of her and it's almost like white. And of course, she wants to be dark. So this ended up being a color correction because in this picture, I'm guessing is coming up here again. Some more of that. She she said she went to a salon months ago and said she wanted to be dark red. And she said they made her hair black. And she was very upset. She goes back, tells them she wants red. So instead of doing anything about the black, they just put a red over it, which just drives me crazy. Don't be lazy about what you do. When you're at the salon, your job is to do the best job that you can do for the client in your chair and don't half-ass anything. Right. Suck it up how long it's going to take. I love that this happens because then they come see us and we get to fix it. I love that. As soon as I started to get into her hair, I mean, it was a very, I told her I was like, you're just going to have to excuse me for a second because I really had to just stand there and like look at her hair and figure this out because what basically happened, and this is Corey Curls on Instagram asked me a question and I said I would answer it on the show because it was too long to put on Instagram. Her hair to look at it, her ends were completely solid black. The mid-shaps were just this weird, fadey brownish kind of color. And then she had random black bands through her hair. More like patches than bands. And then a half-inch of level nine regrowth. Yeah, I don't think that picture you put up did it justice of the before. No, it didn't. But I was at that point, I was like, I needed to get this going. Yes. I feel like analyzing it, taking pictures everywhere. I know the whole thing. It was the end of the day and there was so much hair. The only way I could get all of it in a shot was to kneel on the ground and shoot it up because it was so long to get far enough away to get all of the hair. You couldn't see any of the color in it. I got to be honest. I just started thinking. When I was at the dentist last week, he took a picture of every single move he made in my mouth, which is kind of weird, but he had this little camera thing. Did he get that to pop up? Yeah, right? No. But he had this little camera thing and he puts it around and it just like right at your tooth. So every like he would drill a little bit and then he would take a picture. Like we should do those kind of things step by step, just not even to post on Instagram. I mean, we all do that. Right. But as a documentation. Maybe just to know where you've been. Yeah. And to show the guest where you've came from. How cool would that be to be able to have that in like the guest profile? Yeah. Like we can't. I mean, that's what it did. Every time he took a picture, it was going into my profile. So he had visit from Tuesday. Documented every photo of everything that he did. So he could reference back to it. I think that that would be an awesome thing. Me too. I don't know. I know Millennium does let you put pictures in it. Like can we put lots of pictures in it? I think so, honestly. We can do it before and after with each person. We'll have to figure out how that connection happens. And maybe I'll give Millennium a call and just say, hey, I have an idea. We might have to have just like a salon camera that we just hook right up to the thing. Yeah. That stays at the front desk. It's so easy to create a folder on the computer that would just, you just name the folder the guest's name. That would be easy to search. I like it. Yeah, let's do that. So yeah, I didn't want to half-ass it. I was looking at her hair and I knew it was going to be like a real undertaking. But I had to do it because her hair needed it. So what I ended up deciding to do, I went through, I did a very, again, a very heavy-handed, I think I did a half-ahead of balayage on her, really making sure I concentrated anywhere that I found that black running through her hair. Because she still did want her hair very dark, but with flashes and dimension of a lighter red. So got through the ends, let it really just lift up and get some life to it, brought her back, completely dried her, and then put a really great formula together with the Shines XG and Roots to Ends, let it process, and we were both really, again, I'm not sure that after, I really, that's where I started to get a little tired because I was working on her for a little over five and a half hours. And by the end, I went through, I smoothed it, I ironed it, but when it came time to do the pictures, I'm just thinking to myself, I'm like, all right, this picture's fine, let's go. So I hope the picture does enough justice because it was just on my phone, but she was super stoked. I mean, I was getting texts from her and her boyfriend all night thanking me for coming and taking the time and all that, I'm like, oh, it is. That's how you win them over, because it's real customer service, it's the way that people should be treated. And I think it's cool that you went through all that. The picture thing, the pictures, pictures are tough, especially when you're, you know, saffron pictures are tough with hair. I don't care how good they say the camera is. Yeah. I just realized I didn't answer the guy's question. Oh, what was his question? His question was why did she have the black ends and the lighter mid chefs? Okay. It's just because when you're dealing with hair that long, you're dealing with very, very old hair. I mean, those ends are years, years, years, years old. And no matter how good a care she takes of her hair, it's old. It's been through wear and tear. It's going to be a little bit more porous. So when they went through and put that black in her hair and the red and all that stuff, it's just like a sponge. It just held onto it and it's going to hold onto it. It's like a damp sponge. No, I don't even want to start with that analogy. But when you really got into her hair, you could almost see that transition of where the damage starts to get worse because it really did fade into that black end. And the mid chefs, it's not necessarily, they were lifted so much, it's just that they were a little bit healthier. So it held onto probably the same amount of red that it should have. And as it faded out, it just faded to that weird warm brown kind of color. And I'm guessing that the random black patches were just random damage sites that held onto the color for whatever reason. There's the answer to your question, Corey Krouse. Cool. And that's the thing, we love questions. And if you guys have questions, please post them below. Sometimes it's a challenge to write back an answer. I can't answer anything. Yeah. And there's also a lot of different situations that could be very different answers and maybe we both have a different opinion. So definitely, if you stay tuned to the shows, you'll see the answers pretty much. All right, cool. Yeah, I finally think I answered that one question. Yeah, good job. So let's go to the interview with Robert Cromings. Robert Cromings is a global artistic director of Paul Mitchell. I got to sit down with him. And honestly, just to introduce Robert, the only thing I'm going to say is that I saw Robert Cromings for the first time 10 years ago on the stage. Sat there listening to every word that he said. Five years later, I had moved halfway across the country to work in this salon and ended up buying it. And at 25 years old, I never could have ran a salon without the advice that I got from the guy you're about to listen to. So I followed him for 10 years. I picked pieces apart from him. I took my payroll structure, my systems that I developed. I mean, the guy came up with the color bar, the wash house. These are all those things. So I hope you guys enjoy this interview and we'll see you right after. Hey, guys, this is Matt Beck from freesaloneducation.com. I'm sitting here with Robert Cromings. How are you, sir? I'm doing good, Matt. Good to see you again. So this is, I'm going to say that this moment would probably be compared to when you sat down with Sassoon, for me, because for 10 years now I've watched you, followed everything that you've done and tried to do it in the best way that I could. So it's an honor to sit down with you and have a talk. Well, one of the most beautiful things about my Vidal Sassoon situation was the beautiful compliment he paid me. And I just got to say, I've looked at your business from a distance from the day you took it over. And I'm so proud and happy to congratulate you because you're doing a remarkable thing every day in your business. I think everybody knows how I feel about the industry. I hate the wannabes. I hate the pretenders. To dress up like a rock star is easy, but to live it at home is the hardest. And why I love you is at home you're living it and you're doing it. And that makes a big difference to me. Well, I appreciate that. And I think that, so I want to talk to you about, I guess, the few things, I guess, if I ever got to sit down with Robert Cromings, I would say is I want to know about, you were from Tennessee, right? Or you're not from Tennessee, but you lived in Tennessee. Yeah, I did. And did you start doing hair there? You know, the kind of record that goes, I was a young kid in Scotland. I wanted to be a hairdresser, but I didn't have the courage. My family didn't support it. So my mom did a beautiful thing when she was young. She married an American citizen. It was in the military. So I actually had an American passport. Okay. And at the age of 24, I decided I had enough of the UK. I got in my car, I drove to the airport, didn't tell a single person. I got in a plane, came to America, and I had relatives, distant relatives, in the States that lived in Memphis and the Mid-South, Mississippi. So within about three weeks of getting to the States, I went right to beauty school and enrolled. Oh, wow, okay. And I'm in school maybe three, four months, and they came in and popped in a video of Paul Mitchell and JP. So when I knew nothing about the beauty industry, I made a decision in school because Paul was Scottish. He was a little crazy. I'm like, that's my guy. And today, if you look at what I've accomplished, what I've done, all started from the same beginning, that same path. I made a great choice. And I was talking to some kids outside. I delivered pizza for a living. Got once, got robbed at gunpoint. Nearly lost my life. And I thought, well, if I'm going to go through all the struggle of this to become a hairdresser, I'm going to make it pay off. And that's one of the things I really wanted to do, to honor my teachers when I was in school. And I decided in school that I'd get more out of my education than any other kid in our school. And I think I did that. So you never know where it's going to come from. And the other thing that I'm really passionate about is the loyalty. I've been with Paul Mitchell nearly 30 years. And I really believe in that. It's really about believing in something and sticking by it. And for me, it's about the consistency. So anybody that's in love with a company and they stay with them, I'm like, well, I love you for that because you're loyal to it. Too many people are quick to change and move into different things, just kind of becoming opportunists. This industry is unfortunately built on people to believe in, like Vidal, like Paul Mitchell. Arnie Miller from Matrix was a man worthy of believing in. And I really get a little word for the future of the industry because I don't think we're putting so many people out there to believe in. And that's why your organization is so critical. We need to get some new faces out there that people can start to believe and trust in the same way the last generation believed in its old leaders. So it's a beautiful business, but you've always got to play it forward. But it's about that commitment. And it means a lot to me, even as a salon owner. People come and join and move on. They're nomads. To me, get involved in something. Stay true to it. Put your time in. Write a passage. And the craziest things you could ever imagine can happen to you just like they happen to me, but being loyal is a big part of it. So you think about loyalty and the people you hang around. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. So I've just been so fortunate to be believing in one company. People used to laugh at me as I go, oh, you're the Paul Mitchell guy. They don't laugh today, Matt. They kind of go, oh, I wish I'd done that. I remember a kid saying in school, I wish I'd done what you did. I go, what was different about me? He goes, you would buy products out your own pocket to use on your beauty school clients. I said, what did that make you think? He said, I wished I had. It's a choice. And I think that's the part we have to understand. Every company can give you the opportunity. Nothing's in your way. And unfortunately, people seem to develop this false evidence. Well, because of that, I can't do this. Well, that's not what we were about. Nothing's in our way stopping us doing anything. To be creative in the modern world is getting around that. And that's where my creative genius comes in. I don't care what obstacles are in front of me. My job is to find a curious way to get around it. Whether that's business or hairdressing. And you know me, that's how I think. So I'm a natural problem solver. And I think that's a great part of my ingenuity. It's a hard thing to find in a person is a problem solver. A lot of people will come to you looking for the answers, I think. And it's even when you do hair shows or even when we're filming this, I think it's like everybody comes to the one person for all of the answers. And I think what's cool, you also mentioned about beauty school buying your own products. I remember when I was in school 10 years ago, I bought all of my own palm tree products because I saw you at a show. I didn't know that you had done that. But I wrote my name on the bottle because you had to keep it from everyone. And I lined them up on the station and I was so proud of just, I don't think it was ever about the bottle. I mean I saw you talking and I saw that it was, there was just so much more to the industry that I figured out on that at that moment. And that's what I wanted to go for was to be able to inspire people and to, you know, the palmmatial part of it for me was that it was a connection to a group of people that I looked up to. And so I think, you know, with creating free salon education, it's just an evolution of that and that path. Well, you know, the world needs to be educated and inspired and unfortunately, the industry is very new every year. It's like exfoliating itself. You know, if you, I do a lot of trade show stuff. If you miss a trade show for two or three years, you walk around and people just wonder who the weird guy in the hat is. Right. You've got to be present. You've got to be active, you know, and you've got to keep doing stuff to keep that energy. But you know, the people you believe in and just like you may not have known my story, but you were prepared to do something remarkable compared to everybody else. And every day I'm looking for that talent of the future, people are prepared to do. I've got a young kid who works for me. His name is Austin Parent. I got him from the Connecticut School. This kid works on his days off in a salon. He doesn't even work and come prep water and do stuff. The kid wants my job so bad I can taste it and he's going to get it. Yeah. I did an $800 retail day with him as my assistant the other day. I had 1,600 in service revenue and at the end of the day he Facebooked me and said, if you could have just done two more clients, Robert, we could have had a $2,000 day. There you go. That's the push. So what I love is, yeah, I do have a bit of control and influence over our law, but I'm influenced also by the young generations of hairdressers. And it's for them that I think we owe the industry to give them that fellow legacy that we had something to believe in whether it was me that crossed your path. They need that same thing and who are going to be their heroes of the future? And that's the part that I want to end me listening to this, that why not you? Why not one of you? Because in the absence of leadership, any numb nut can take the microphone. Right. And I have a real issue with that. I care about the beauty industry too much and before Vidal passed away, one of the things he said to me is I'm going to leave this to you now Mr. Cromines and I'm like, wow, I don't think I can do it single handedly, but me and a few guys like me, we can keep this moving and continue to change an industry and how it thinks about in the same profound way he did many years ago. On one of the interviews I did with him, he talked to me when he had a seven-chair salon. He was doing a photo shoot with David Bailey, the correct title to David Bailey, Sir David Bailey. He is one of the most famous British photographers in the world. Vidal's at the shoot and David says to him, what's wrong with you today? Something's up. And he said, well, I have a seven-chair salon and four of my staff just quit. Oh, wow. The one that stayed was Annie Humphries. And through that devastation, as he spoke to me on the microphone about it, I could feel the emotion like it happened just yesterday, even though it was 50 years prior. I mean, you never forget that. Now you would never imagine this icon, Vidal Sassoon, could suffer a walkout. Right. So if it could happen to me, it could happen to you, it could happen to you, Matt. I'm just saying, these are the things we kind of show people through our experience. Vidal, as a kid, had the worst cockney accent in the world. He couldn't understand them. And he knew in order for him to be the great Vidal Sassoon, he'd have to learn to talk eloquently. So he went to acting school to learn how to create words and noises. And I don't know if you ever heard the man speak. He's one of the greatest public speakers you'd ever hear, just in his word power. So the way he would make cheekbones and jaw lines and different descriptors about facial features, he made them sound like so sexy. The passion and his words and everything else, there's no doubt in my mind why he became one of the greatest leaders. It wasn't what he did with scissors, it's the way he communicated. He was the most outstanding communicator I've ever seen, and that wasn't natural, it was by choice. So that's what I love is when you look at somebody's beginning story, just go back to my beginning story, delivering pizza, go into beauty school at 24. Most kids start at 18 and 20. That's my biggest regret. Where would I be today if I started at 18? So when you get around people's beginning, like John Paul, my mentor, has lived in his car for two years, started a company with 700 bucks. And now he's one of the fifth richest men on the planet. He used to work for one of our competitors, I'm not going to mention their name, and he was fired many years ago and they told him he wasn't management material. Nice. I love that story because how can you imagine, so in your world of what you think a manager is, John Paul is one of the most outstanding managers, remarkable in every way. So it's a beautiful thing when you can look at the history of it and get around people that can really inspire through their beginning story to help you develop your beginning story. We all start somewhere. Right. And success is a wonderful thing, but it's not a destination after three weeks. It's a journey of life. And definition of success to me is every day you're getting closer to your dream, you're successful. Right. Whatever that may be for you. And even to watch Vidal Sassoon's dream process and what was success to him, his success was working off of an industry that became better because of him. We used to do photo shoots for Vogue magazine. We were treated like slave labor. And he changed all that with Richard Avedon and he started to become an acquired result that instead of get the hair, he was like, the hair's not done yet. You'll wait on me. I'm Vidal Sassoon. Right. He started creating a whole prestige to it. So an industry that was generally getting no money for haircuts. The only haircuts we were doing was cutting off fish hooks of perms. We were giving it away for nothing. He stood up and said, I'm going to invent a design called precision haircutting. And to a degree, if a client came in for a shampoo roller set, he would turn them away to the degree to be different, to get that new thing. Yeah. He would turn away customer because that wasn't what it was about to be clear on the vision and be in true to that vision every day. No compromise. Yeah, sometimes things get watered down. Absolutely. And people start to just water down. I look at what you're left with. Too many avenues. Be true to your vision. Stick to it. Be true to your business. And I'm just saying, be influenced by people. You know, if you take from one person, you're a stealer. If you take from many, it's research. And what I'm very happy to do in my world, I travel the globe. I look at other salons. I study other salons, competing lines, other salons from different cultures because that helps me be a master of it. But to me, at the end of the day, people need stuff to believe in that's tangible and they need accurate information and they also need to know how they interpret the dream. You've got to be interpretive. A lot of people don't know this, but I coached the military and we opened salons there and I invented a concept called color bar. Well, the military have their own way. They call it color ops. They call take home provisions. What I'm saying is I'll put it out there what I'm doing, but it's their job to interpret that. Don't go, well, I don't have a color bar like that. Your job is not to build a color bar like mine. Your job is to interpret it in your dream. Right. Your salon is your dream. You're in business for yourself, but not necessarily by yourself. So that's kind of where we come into play. So, you know, smart minded people, just like great hairdressers. I just think there's not enough business and you know, we're here at the millennium conference. I love this conference because I keep score the same way these people do. We do. Our schools do. So it's very apples to apples. Yeah. So this conference is one of my favorites I do. Not the biggest audience I do in some of these rooms, but the intent. And I know I speak hairdresser here and owner here. They know I do what they do. So, you know, the business part, hairdressers will spend 50% of their career, 80% of their career, watching another hair cut, another color technique, another updo when you can get on the internet without leaving your living room, find more information you can imagine. And yet how much time do we spend developing the dialogue the DNA of success, looking at vital signs, indicators, labor costs, you know, all these different fluctuating points. We've got to be kind of schizophrenics of the modern world, half businessman, half artist. Right. And I think that's a big part and why this particular users group, and I love that name, users group, like we're addicts. But what I love is there's some very successful business owners out here, some bigger than you and I, and we're pretty big boys ourselves. And that is humbling that people even at $3 million scores are coming in to find out new material. Right. I don't care who you are and how good you've got it, something can change every day that has to make you adapt your new system. So it's understanding that no matter what you built, there was a guy before Susan came along. His name was Teasey Weezy. He was the first hairdresser of his own private jet. He had an entourage of 32 people that traveled with him. He was a roller setting king. He did Hollywood movies. He's been credited on Hollywood. When Vidal started this precision hair cutting, Teasey Weezy said that'll never catch on. Teasey Weezy died many years later, broke. I mean, you cannot define what will change. It will change. I love when I interviewed Vidal. I said, tell me about the blow dryer. He said, do you mean the hand dryer? And he talked about how that was invented and the way it came alive. And I said, did you invent it? He said, no, many people at the same time made the discovery. You know, I had a lie and said I did. I just love the fact that there's commonality. We're all sort of getting closer to it. And there's multi-times people discovering at the same exact moment. So who owns it? I'm not quite sure about that. Understand that you've got to keep reinterpreting your business year after year. It never stops. Yeah, I mean, at the end of my business class, I have a slide that has a picture of an old movie theater and it's being torn down. And it says on the sign, it says, that's all folks. Thanks for 30 years. And what I say to everyone is that business still looks 30 years old. And that's what happened. The evolution of a movie theater now is lazy boy recliners and alcoholic beverages and a server at your thing. So if you don't evolve and go with the times, I mean, that's what's great about this conference. Everybody's using pretty much computer software and everybody's listening to every word that every artist is sharing about numbers and systems and all of that. Well, it's sad. And I can't doubtify it. 20% of the industry is automated. And there can only be really one reason some people don't want to declare everything. So they want to hide. And I'm just saying, I love being an American. I love paying taxes. And I think there's some other benefits. It's part of what makes the world go round. And you think I pay a lot of taxes, I imagine what John Paul must pay. Oh, right. And yeah, I remember the first tax bill I got. It was $100,000. My partner's got upset and cried. And I got happy. Because I knew if I had to pay $100,000, I must have made a million bucks. Exactly. So to me, it's part of what the American dream is. It's part of what we got to do. Automation, if you can't inspect something, you can't correct it. Hair dresses for years have worked for 25 years, end up in the grave and never got what they were capable of because they never looked at the success and the footprint success leaves behind. Until our industry starts keeping score in a similar way, we'll never get to what's possible. So with your show and what we could do collectively, I'm just saying it's not the size of your salon. Pick up Meval. It doesn't matter how big you are. The point is no longer can we work off of paper books. We've got to start quantifying it because kids that join your company have a career path in mind. And if I'm going to accept you as an employee, I've made the exchange promise that I'm going to help you develop your dream. I can only do that not with emotion, but with absolute data of here's where you are, here's what you've got to do to get what you want to do. And numbers help me do that. So if it can't be inspected, it can't be corrected. I'm sick of giving people information. I want to give them transformation. Enough talk. It's like Charlie Brown's parents at a hair show. I go to hair shows everywhere and I listen to the other guys. I say, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Like what are you saying? Too much talk, not enough action. I said it today when I said open up the show. Stop taking shit, start doing shit. Get busy, make your own show, make a video, do a photo shoot, get out there, put it out there. Too many people are waiting on Ed McMahon to knock on their door and go, you just won a million dollar sweepstake. You got to get it out there. And I'm just saying every day I'm seeing kids that are doing what it takes and not being denied because nobody can deny you what you're after, not your color of skin, your educational background, where you live. I don't care if it's the Mid-South, Missouri, Memphis, Tennessee, Nantucket, it matters not. Yeah. I started in Memphis, Tennessee, so anybody could come in from anywhere. You don't need to leave 11 New York or Manhattan to get all. I started in Iowa, so... It makes no difference. So that's the beauty of the beauty industry and the people that you can study and the people you can look with on the internet and Facebook and really get all these ideas and then start to create your own opinions. You know, I see a lot of guys post on Facebook what they don't like. I'm so sick of hearing what people don't like. Tell me what you love. Tell me what drives you crazy with passion because I'm too much negatory in the world. So I'm more interested when I hear platformers that say what they're about, not what they're not about, you know, what they like about the beauty industry, not so much of what they don't like. I see a lot of people out there play in the hate game. They're player haters, like we're rap stars. We have this, they don't have this. It's about... You're not pointing to the manufacturer. Well, they're the manufacturer. Where would we be in the beauty industry without manufacturers like Paul Mitchell, Aveda, Tony and Guy? Right. The industry would be so fragmented, so scattered. We need people to believe in. We are committed 100%. I'm a rock star, movie star, platform artist, but I travel with 10 others that are just as famous as I am. And we've got 6, 700 educators. I mean, and we believe this stuff and it's about the legacy we leave behind. So manufacturers are not the devil and businesses that are profitable are not the devil. You know, we're for profits, the American dream. But what do manufacturers do? They help unite an industry. They give salons of independent stature, a voice, a connection point. So to me, even on the Paul Mitchell guy, there's a reason why I buy Paul Mitchell. Because what I need more for my salon empire is staff. Right. And what they grow more than any other company I've been affiliated with is staff, future professionals. So, you know, when you're picking a company, it can't just be, well, I'm not going to use Paul Mitchell. They've been around for 1980. They're old news. Well, if you looked at this lately, we're like corn flakes. We discover corn flakes. Because when I'm coaching your business, what I think you need is staff. I think you need a systems. We provide those free for just being a customer. A lady asked me, can I get you into the salon? I said, well, I'll tell you, it's going to cost you money because you're not a customer. Right. If you were my customer, you get me for free. So there's a benefit to it. And I'm just saying that if you've got something to do and manufacturers are a great avenue, my manufacturers help me become an icon of the beauty industry. And not many manufacturers would let a little guy become up and be as big as they are because they'd be scared that he's going to go break away and start his own product line. Well, I'm not inspired by having my name on a product line. I once had my face on panties. That was some cool shit. But to have my name on a bottle of shampoo, every day I see a bottle of shampoo with the name Paul Mitchell on it. I feel that is my name. Right. I am happy to say that I am a product of Paul Mitchell from Beauty School on. The success I've enjoyed is thank you to the company I've represented loyally for 30 years. It's really that simple. Yeah. Put your time in. It's the right of passage. Believe in who you're running. Find the people that speak to your heart. Not just people say, oh, come work for me. I'll pay you more. You may take that deal and hate it. I'm just saying if something speaks to you, a company speaks to you, that's the indicator you're looking for, that that's the company you should join. And the same success I've discovered at Paul Mitchell, I don't doubt that you'd find that same journey within your grasp. There's no difference. And I think it's just all about taking the opportunity. And I did not plan on waking up today, talking to you, so I really appreciate that. But I didn't even bring bathing suit to this event. Because I knew that this is, I want to spend the entire event talking to people like you. And I don't need to be at the beach. I can do that other times. And just spend the day learning about the business because that's what's going to make you... Maybe 15 years ago, I'm in China with John Paul. We launched there. And he said to me the next day, because he's such a papa to me, I'm going to take you to see the great red wall. China red wall. You can see it from satellites looking down as such a man-made fixture. And I said, no disrespect, John Paul. I can see that on Discovery Channel. I'm going to go visit Chinese hair salons. In that trip is where I found Wash House. Darkroom shampoo. So again, the thief, the pyre I am, taken from many. If I had went to see the great red wall, I would have missed out on an opportunity to come up with a concept that has revolutionized how people think about their salon sink. So when I look at the concepts I'm able to find, it's not because I'm so smart. I'm just lucky enough to get out there. And I'm able to see and subtract, like Salvador Dali see and what other people didn't see. It makes a big difference. So I think you're doing the right thing. Absolutely. Life is too short. So many people come to the show for the party. There's so much you can do. And you've decided to come into this millennium experience and get the most out of it. Yeah. We had this set up actually in our hotel room on the round table. And then last night I was like, you know what? Maybe we should put that on the big stage. Let's just ask. Let's just ask and see what happens. And then it ended up here and now we're with you. John, are you charging for rental? Yeah. Do I have to pay for this? I don't know if you heard that little faint sneeze. That was John Harms. He's got a little sneeze like a little girl. I'd hate to hear him fart, to be quite honest. So one very last thing. Mevo is coming out. Yes. John showed the... John, it's called gamification. Gamification. So what is exciting you about this? Because I'm floored and I can't wait to bring it into my salon. So what? I hope John Harms never hears this. But when I first became a customer of his and we made a partnership at Pull Mitchell, he explained how robust millennium was. And boy, is it. And for guys like him, programmers and all their people. Yeah, but we're hairdressers. Right. So I think there's two great things about this new breakthrough. One is it's a streamlined version of it. But what I love is 60% of the industry is now independent. Now something shifted, it was 50-50 for many years after the last recession, 2007-89. The industry decided for no longer were they going to have faith in certain salons. So I'm just saying, like it or not. I repeat, as hairdressers get nothing to do with it. Like it or not, there's an independent workforce. So they still need numbers. They still need reports. They need to control merchandise inventory, balance their checkbook, pay taxes and all this stuff. So what I love about this is it's very catered towards the independent where I see it for my big salons. I could see us doing chair side checkout, starting to work with things instead of, why would I have you sit in my salon for three hours to go make you wait online to go pay? Right. Just like a beautiful restaurant dining. I see so many implications, but I'm just saying I'm going to do this whole Barry Manilow thing. And now for my next number. I mean, I am inspired by numbers. Yeah. Numbers speak to me. You know, it's like a beautiful thing. So I think hairdressers, they start to get it in the simple part of it and the graphics and all the things. Speaks hairdresser too. And I think they're going to love it and the choices and options of which device you want to run it on. Used to be to say, I'm going to get into software. Well, I can't afford software. I'm not into it. What I love about it is the price point. I don't care what budget. A friend of mine in London, Angus, his future wife, their mom and dad own a salon. Okay. I said, I'm going to get you Mevo. It's a six chair salon. I said, I'm going to hook you up. I know some people. And she goes, Oh, I can't afford a computer. I said, buy an iPad or I'll give you an iPad. There's no reason and money. I'll never take as excuse when people say, so if I had your money, I'd do that. The smartest shit I ever did as a kid was when I had no money. The smartest thing JP and Paul ever did was when they had no money. Some people get money to get stupid. And I'm just saying, let's not get stupid about this. To me, what John's doing, and I had a choice of which partner I chose out of the beauty industry. There's other software companies. I interviewed six, but John spoke to me like no other. And that was why I knew he would be the partner that we would choose at Paul Mitchell. And he would be a partner. And I would recommend MD in the world that wanted software to go to because I think he understands our business. And when he said yesterday at the opening of the event that he wants to help your lives be better, I believe him. And that's why we're partners today. First time I went to, I was at this conference, it was, you just know, it's just like being at a Paul Mitchell, you know, the gathering or anything. It's a feeling that you get that you're surrounded by a company that cares about the success of your business and they're smart. And that's what I love. You talk to any other company. I've talked to the other software companies that call my salon. And they don't understand frequency of visit. They're not focused on that. They're focused on making something look good and then putting it out there. I think all the graphs, all the bells and whistles, all the stuff, but what got me with John, he said, what is your reservation to do when she comes to work? She takes her coat off and waits for the phone to ring. Then he showed me an active list. He showed me what she could do. And suddenly that day's business changed. And we decided as a company now that we have the power to shift every day. And we do it every single day. We keep scoring, we do more. The old way was looking a quarter, looking a month back, a week past payroll and wondering where we went wrong. We can't fix it. Looking at the past. Day to day, day to day. And I'm just saying we've recovered a company that lost millions of dollars during the recession thanks to John from frequency of visit, all the data points. I love being a coach for the industry. So they'll ask me a question. I give them the answer and they don't like the answer. Meaning you don't really want to hear the truth. Numbers don't lie. The old way of running the business was emotion. The new way is running on statistics and knowing that there's actually a DNA of success. And if you really say what you mean and you mean what you say, you want to be successful, these are the things you got to do. And once a kid learns that from me, no matter where they go in the world, open their own salon, move down the street, whatever, they will be successful. Yeah, I mean that's what I did. I listened to your CDs and seriously over and over driving to Palmichill classes back and forth in my car. And you just implement, I was able at 25 to buy Samber and Salon. And I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it because I already had my roadmap. And then from there, I got to expand it and develop it and try to make it my own feeling. But it was great. And that's where people need to be at these kind of events and at the gathering and to hear people like you talk so that they can have that. Well, John doesn't know this, but this is kind of fun because most of these people don't know me at this event. So they kind of come in with this little like, oh, I'm not gonna touch him, he's gonna sell me Palmichill. But what I really do is sell people on the beauty of the industry. And I don't care who you do business with, I want you to love them. I make statements that you're in love with your hairdresser. We talk about it matters who you do business with. So, look at the companies you do business with. They're good tangible people and you're doing business with a great relationship, they're giving all you want and stay with them. I have no problem with that. There's nothing for all of us. So I'm not trying to dominate the world, but I do want to find a job for my future professionals because no matter where you go to school, they need a job and a career path. So to me, if we could do something together, it'd be getting people automated, getting them on software because this is the advantage. If we, just like a language of haircutting, if we can all agree that we understand the word geometry, we understand graduation, we understand layer, if the world kept score in a similar way, we'd be able to help each other in a much better way because we'd be comparing apples to apples. That's what makes my job as a coach so difficult that people are working on paper books, not using technology. If you're not using technology today, I got a message for you, 1980 called They Want Their Eight Trackpad. It is time for you to embrace it, whether it's Twitter, Pinsti, I don't even know them all. I can't even keep up with it. I don't care what it is. The old days, to see Paul Mitchell, you had to go live and see the man on stage. The new ways, using the internet, using the great force of technology to find out anything you want to do. I spend more time on my iPad than any other device. Researching shows, music, choreography. I can find anything, inspiration with forks, anything you can imagine, music made with balloons, anything I can trigger in, I can find. So that's the part that I think is really, gives a person a chance to really be active towards what they really want. And the difference between me and maybe some of the listeners out there is 30 years of experience. If you apply yourself today, listening to what I say, you can accelerate your experience and what took me 30 years, you could do in 10. Right, you can grasp, you know. I think I wasted a lot of time in my early 15 years of the industry, the last 10 or 15 I've really accelerated, but I didn't sell myself short, but what could I have done? I'm just saying, don't think, well, I'm 30 years and I'll be successful, what can you do to accelerate? If you're doing five a day, that's making you five good. If you're doing 10 clients a day, you'll be better. You want to double your experience, you got to double your clientele, and that's not just to make more revenue, it'll help your speed pickup. A girl said to me yesterday, all right, I'm running behind all the time, and it takes me this long, and I did four haircuts in 20 minutes, and I'm like, well, you're talking to the wrong guy. Now, you would never think your pace can quicken, but you hang out with a guy like me, it will quicken, because I used to hang out with my platform partner, Jean Bra, she'd have cut four heads, and I was still working on my first one. Right. And by the time I finished working with Jean as platform partners, my pace was a little superior to hers, even the great Takashi, one of the fastest in the world, has a trouble keeping pace with me. Being a salon head is about having pace, it's about, Stephanie calls it paceman, it's about understanding that time management is the key, and spending a week on a haircut is a beautiful thing if you're demonstrating and making a video, but real time, you've got to be able to move on a faster pace on certain times. Right. So training is something people got to do, and I don't think you have to go to a show to do that. You could train on your own living room with a doll head, working with your pro tools. There's so many ways you can get into this, and it suddenly crazes me when I see people how little they're prepared to do it for it, like American Idol, I want it so bad. It's so funny because your actions don't say you do. Right. If you truly wanted it, you're gonna do whatever it takes to get there, and that's the remarkable people that we'll see in our future, they'll be the future leaders of the industry. I mean, the living room is where you prepare for it. I mean, the hair show, you come here, you get inspired, but then you gotta go home, and you have to, that's when you actually do the work. And when it's not in front of people, I mean, that's where it comes from, and then you come back to a show and get inspired again. Well, it's a beautiful opportunity we get, we get to connect with people, and I never take it for granted. I do a lot of these shows, you know, that worldwide, but it always means something to me. People say, what keeps you going? How come you're always so excited? I get from them, their energy is what drives me. And I think I'll continue doing it until I know that when I'm out there and I'm looking in their eyes, they're not with me anymore, you know? You know, just smoothly slide off stage. But somebody said to me, are you gonna retire? I said, probably not. If, you know, to me, retirement has ended up doing what you love. I love this. I love this job. So I would be crazy to say I'd do whatever I want to give it up to do what. I've got this. Yeah, what are you gonna do? Well, as a young kid, the circus came to town. I was six or seven, and they plotted up in my little neighborhood. And at the end, they told me they were taking me with them. And I was so devastated when they'd left, and I was still left in my little town in Scotland. And I look later in life, and I realize I actually did run away with the circus, and I am part of the circus attraction, you know? So it's amazing what you can wish for. We talked about Vidal, and I want to kind of close with this. I did a show in London in front of him before he passed away, 6,000 hairdressers. My mother was in the audience. I dressed up as a transvestite clown. And not knowing to me, I finished at the break, and he was up next. And when he got up on stage, he mentioned my name. And that made my little mama, who's no longer on the planet either, just the proudest hairdressing mama of the world, because Vidal so soon in front of 6,500 people mentioned my name. Right. Well, the next day, Tecash and I went up to visit her in Scotland. She lived in Glasgow. And we were sitting in the living room. I think I cut her hair and then Tecashy fixed it. And as we were kind of getting ready to leave, my mom said, son, I'm so proud of you. I just wanted you to know that. But I have a question as your mother. When you were at a wee boy, which means when you were a little boy, did you ever imagine in your wildest dreams, you'd be traveling the world, having your photo taken. Vidal so soon mentioned your name. As a wee boy, did you ever imagine, I said, mom, as a wee boy, that's all I ever imagined. Right. That's the beauty of the beauty industry. Whatever you can imagine, you can make happen. Just like people before us did, from Vidal to Paul and et cetera, et cetera. So I never take it for granted. I never take it, you know, I want the audience to come, but I never take it for granted, they will. And I just think it's a big part of that kind of dreamer part of it. And that's where hairdressing is so different. You know, I don't know if IT guys go and get dreaming excited like we do. We'll have to ask them. But to me, it's about this passion point. And I think because we come from a different educational background, I think that's why we're so good at delivering it. So it's about touching people's hearts and souls. And I think that's the dedication hairdressers have to have. We have chosen to be servants to the people. Right. And that's an honor. And you've got to do it with 100% pride at any level. And whether you're a platform artist working with cutie models or whether you're a hairdresser behind the chair, we have a beautiful job that we want to take care and make everybody in the world see their hairdresser in a better light. Thank you for Vidal putting out that first impression. We all owe it to each other to be this good. And Andy, who doesn't, unfortunately, are hurting the whole industry. And I'm just saying we got to get better. We got to get smarter. And we got to attract even more vibrant people. So what you and I do today are not just going to help the people in the industry. It's going to attract tomorrow's kids. I've had more kids went to beauty school because they got a load of me. Just saying, that's a power. When you've got kids that were never thinking about going, I'm going to be a hairdresser just like him. That's a beautiful thing. And I think the better we all do, then we're going to start to bring in a whole different gene pool of people that's going to help our industry go even further. Awesome. Well, I know there was a lot of things you could have done. You just skipped lunch for this. So thank you very much, Robert. My pleasure, Matt. Make sure that you follow us on Facebook. Do you want to plug anything? You guys, look at me. It's robertchromies.com. You can check me out on Facebook anywhere you want to talk to me. I love to hear from the people. I don't quite have your network going on there. Well, I'm working very... Well, I'm sure I'll get a few hits from you. I got some major tweets yesterday. I was a rock star yesterday, 2.2 million. Jesus, I feel like Justin Bieber. But the thing about it is you've got to put it out there and I really admire what you're doing. I watch your numbers to see the people, you're connecting to the people. You have a voice, young man. Thank you. Do the right thing with it always. In any way we can help each other, you can always count on me. All right, Robert. Thank you very much. We'll see you guys on the next video. Thanks. All right, guys. So I hope you enjoyed that interview with Robert Chromies. It was definitely a big honor for me to be able to sit down with him and just kind of chat. It's fun to talk to. I look at the fact that, I didn't know that was gonna happen at there. So there's a million questions I probably could have asked that now I'm like, oh, I wish I would have. But next time. There will be another time and we'll get into that. So we have questions from social media. If you want. On your phone. Yeah. Hey, hey. Well, I just asked the question last night. We're looking for questions. So you follow us on Facebook. You have a chance to write questions as well. Yeah, just start at the top and... All right, Lily Sanchez. I am currently in cosmetology school and would like to know what is something you never learned in school and wish someone would have told you before. I would love to spin the wheel, by the way. Wouldn't we all? Yeah. Something that wasn't told to me in beauty school. I don't know. I think when I was in school, I had the fortune of having some really great instructors that wanted us to have real world knowledge. I mean, of course, there's a million things that I've learned since then. I've learned way more since then than I probably did then. I don't know. Maybe just to have faith in myself to use knowledge of what a haircut should be rather than try to recreate a haircut every single time. Yeah. Because I felt like in school it was this is how this haircut is done always, forever. Rather than just trusting myself to know what's gonna happen when I put that kind of shape on that kind of head and all that stuff. Yeah. Just, I don't know, yeah. I think in school, I wish, the one thing I wish was taught in school was head shape. Yeah. And not facial shape, but- I guess that's kind of what I'm saying. Yeah, like following the head shape with that. And being a little freer with color. People are- Oh, see, I was crazy with color. I saw a girl's picture yesterday and I wish I could bring it up and show the picture and everything, but now, because I don't know if she would want, but it was such a stripy, it was like what we were doing in beauty school with Kelly Clarkson stripes. And she said that she felt rushed, that her teacher, they're trying to teach them to work quickly so she doesn't feel like she- And I get that, I get that struggle because you do have to work quick in the business, but beauty school is where you learn to work efficiently and to work clean and all that, then start assisting and learning the flow of the salon. You're not gonna learn the flow of the salon in beauty school, that's silly. Speed happens on its own. I mean, it's one of those things. I used to get so frustrated with myself in beauty school because everything took me so long to do. And my one instructor really beat into my head. She's like, so long as you keep doing it this way, keep being efficient, it will get faster on its own. Don't worry about speed right now. And what are you getting fast for anyways? You got no clients. So there's really no point, and that's the thing. You can get really fast and be shitty at hair, but then in the end result is gonna be you just doing really fast shitty hair and no one's gonna come back. They're gonna run really fast away from you. So work on quality first, then work on speed. Speed, like you said, will come. I mean, you'll learn that as you get busier. One day you're gonna wake up, you're gonna be fully booked for the day and you're gonna wanna start double booking. You're gonna wanna bring on an assistant or something. Then you'll learn to do that. It's just, it's an evolution. So I guess we gotta keep doing it. This is funny. How do you tell a client you no longer wish to provide services for them? As our boss, how would you like us to tell our guests that they're fired? So Dad kinda had this situation recently a little bit. He didn't tell her that she was fired, but there's, you can't tell people they're fired. You can. You can. I've seen it, not here, but I've seen it. I was assisting a girl one time that had to fire a client. She was such a nervous wreck that day. Yeah, I mean, I've never had to do it really. I let them fire themselves. Yeah, I let them fire themselves. I mean, I don't have to live with these people so I don't care like my one just recently, she's a total beast, total nightmare. It would ruin my whole week knowing that she was coming up, but I got through it, got through it, suffered through it. And then finally she calls one morning, poor Dreia. She calls one morning and leaves a message saying, she's not coming back. This whole baloney about being treated a certain way and all this, that's just not true. And Dre is like nervous to tell me that there's this message. She goes, do you wanna listen to it? I said, no, I don't care. I'm glad she's not coming back. She's like, should we call her back? I said, no, I don't want her, that's fine. It's funny. We will be fine without her. I randomly run into people that don't come to the salon anymore because it's the reality of some people fit and some people don't. And it used to bum me out for a long time. And now I'm like, I'll be at the gym or something and I see a client and I'm like, I'm so happy that they don't come because we don't get along. I'm not friends with everyone in the world because we don't all get along. It's just the way my business fits certain people. And that's really the reality of it. You have to figure out what stylists fit in your business. And then you also have to figure out what clientele fits in your business and aim for them and cater to them and not worry about everyone else. Hey Matt, did you want me to touch on this? Cause I actually have some advice that like one of my clients actually told me because he's in construction. And like there's sometimes there's people that he doesn't wanna work with. He's in construction? Yeah, so Justin, he was talking to me about how like he and his business partner just came back from a site and the guy just really rubbed him the wrong way. He felt like it was gonna be just like more of a hassle to do the job than to just like walk away. What he suggested that he does is he'll still put it in a bed cause he doesn't wanna be rude but he'll put it for a much higher price. So like if that client's like coming in for color and stuff like that, maybe charge them more. Maybe do something like that, don't rebook them. So, so you wanna charge people more? Well, that's what you have to suggest for booking. Yeah, that's what he did. Do everything the complete opposite of what we've ever said. Pretty much. Yeah, otherwise like... Cause that's how you don't build a book. Yeah. Right. So we have a strategy for people we wanna keep and we have a strategy for people we don't. And just do the exact opposite of what we're telling you to. Yeah, when I tell you to. I'm just like, all right, you guys have a good one. See you next month. All right, I hope you meet another hairdresser at a bar. Yeah. All right, real quick, I like this last one from Michelle Barusin. How would you deal with a boss that is not very helpful with wanting to help build your clients with promotions when you are? I'm very motivated to start promos to get more clients when I'm new to the salon, especially when I work in a mall. So there's lots of opportunities, but she's saying no to all ideas. I say, get a new job. Yes. Get a different boss. Yeah, Michelle, I mean, Michelle's been following us for a long time. She's got the volleyball. Yep. So, which is fast. Like, she's in Canada. So they got that quick. I think they just shipped it out a few days ago. Or she did. So, Michelle, I would definitely say you're going to be in this business for a long time. And if you don't have a huge clientele already, go somewhere else, because you can't. It's never going to get better. You're never going to talk. You're going to talk her into doing promotions for you. And then there's going to be another battle in front on top of that, education, something else. It's just, if she's already, if she's not even into helping promote you and you're willing to do it, most of the time, the owner wants to run a 20% off promotion and the staff you got to get on board. Like, there should be no reason somebody that owns a business would not want to jump on somebody that's willing to do a promotion. I mean, that's the kind of boss that views that salon as just like a walk in place. And that's it. You don't need to promote. I'm not going to promote you. All right, cool. But if you're the kind of stylist that wants to put that time in to promote and find ways to build yourself, then maybe that's just not the right location for you. You don't want to be in that spot, yeah. So, cool. Cool. Anything else? I think I'm pretty good. Was that pretty much all of the comments on there? Yeah, I mean, there was a couple more that we can go over. There's Stephanie. So, let's quickly, what did she say? Say, can I come in? I was like, no. No, sorry. We can, let's quickly, let's add real quick, get the wheel up here. We'll spin the wheel and then run off and do hair. It's weird not having hair. I know, we don't have Dreia. So, the Dreia. So, we're not clamping it, you're our clamps? There's no clamps, yeah. Nice, muscles. Muscle clamps. So, Dreia picked Bobby Wilson. So, Bobby, this wheel's for you. We have Amica, the free blow dryer. Millennium is three months free of Mevo. We have Pivot Point DVD collection, a Bolly Box, and then all of the fist logos are a T-shirt from Shop FSC. Speaking of which, that's got the new shirt on. Black tank top, it's got this. The tank. So, and then $25 gift card or $100 off scissors. So, Bobby, good luck, Brian, you wanna spin? Give it a good one. All right. I'm stronger than that. A Bolly Box. Of course, that's where it's gonna land on when I spin it. Everyone's gonna want you to spin from now on. I know, Dreia just gets T-shirts. There you go, Saddy. So, Bobby, you want a Bolly Box? Just send me your address. Email it to freesaloneducation.com. Wow, that's pretty cool. That's one of our first, it's only our second sponsored prize ever. Yeah. Wow. All right. Congratulations, and so let's wrap it up. But you got anything to say? I think we're good. We got more steps coming. Super stoked about that. Yeah. We have a lot of videos. We also have Trending Tresses. We recorded it a little bit different. We didn't even say Dreia's not here today. We did say it's Guy's Day. Yeah, she didn't notice. Dreia's not here. Yeah, Dreia's not here. She had something to do, but we did record Trending Tresses in a different way. So, I hope you guys enjoy that. Barrett's tip also will be coming up after that. And I hope you guys enjoyed the interview with Robert Cromings. I hope you enjoyed episode 39, Sausage Fest. You know, I got it. I have to say, I liked this episode. I felt like it was not as, maybe we didn't laugh as much, but I think we got down to business. We did. We got a lot done. Yeah, so. It's official. Dreia and Barrett are distracting. So, all right guys, I hope you enjoyed it. Check us out. Subscribe to us on YouTube. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Free Salon Education. Also follow us on Twitter at Salon Education. And Instagram. Hairstyle. Fat bull and iced. Fat bull and iced. And we will, yeah, all of the, I think that's it. I have nothing else to say. All right, then stop. All right, I will. We're gonna do hair guys. We'll see you on the next episode. Thanks. This is Dreia Bowlin from Free Salon Education.com and we're bringing you this week's Trending Tresses. First off, we have Allison Panaghan who has changed her red up a little bit this season. She is normally a richer, deeper red and she's gone for a more fiery orange copper color which is looking very fresh and bright this season. Lance Bass and Nicole Richie have been blowing up their Instagrams with pictures of their new bright blue hair colors. Lance Bass is pretty cool because it goes from a deeper blue all the way up to a lighter blue giving it a nice ombre effect which he has been giving lots of the hashtag love to Purvana. And next we have Vanessa Hudgens who has taken out all of her extensions and joined the Long Bob Club chopping it off to a nice one length thanks blunt cut which is pretty cool and in season right now. Sienna Miller has also joined the Long Bob Club but hers is a little bit more asymmetrical and dramatic. It's just a little bit flirty and fun. And Kristen Stewart has also chopped off her hair into a very choppy shaggy-esque look. It still has the nice bright orange ends and her natural roots. Moving into Sierra who has added great lengths to her style recently. She has added a ton of extensions with dreadlocks in there giving her a nice multi-dimensional bond and brunettes intermixing with each other. And up next we have Helen Mirren who has just recently admitted in an interview that she only sees the hairdresser once a year and in between those times she has been known to cut her hair herself often right before a red carpet event. And if you're a fan of Diane Keaton's style click the link below to check out her new hair blog so you can see her thoughts and opinions on these crazy styles. This is Drea Bowlin from freestyloneeducation.com. Make sure you subscribe to us on YouTube and follow us on Facebook so we can keep you up to date on all the hottest trending dresses. And this is Barista O'Kana from freestyloneeducation.com here with our tip of the week. This week I'm not gonna do a full style on the hair I'm just gonna show how if you have a little bit thinner hair and you still want that front crown braid or just the front braid in the front when you're going to do an up style or just wear it down how to make it look a little bit more plump. So here we go. Okay so there's two ways you can go about this. You can see that I already did the French braid all the way down until you could just do the three strand braid. Put the elastic in it. If you have a little bit of hair that's gonna fall over the braid the one thing I would say to do take a bobby pin in your hand not a hair pin, make sure it's a bobby pin and you're just gonna push it forward so that you get a little bit of lift in the front and then all you would have to do is throw that one bobby pin in there to hold it in there and then the rest of the hair from the up style would fall over that. The other way to do it, same way to start it take either the tail of a teasing comb or any brush that you have and you're just gonna pull some of these pieces out while it's in the braid. Don't feel like you're pulling the braid out because you have the foundation set in with the elastic right now. So you're pulling out and you can see that you're starting to get a little bit of volume in the front. You can pull the hair as high as you wanna get it and then hairspray it where you need it to stay or as little as you need to do. So I'm just gonna pull these front pieces a little lower even with my hand just so that it lies on the face a little bit. And then what you're gonna do you're gonna take the elastic actually out of the hair because the braid's not gonna go all the way the braid's just in the front of the hair. So just to get a little bit more lift to the side and I'm gonna hairspray that just with a heavier hairspray and go back in one more time with the tail of my comb and pull it out, pull it up and down towards the face if you want more of the braid on the face. And then going into your up style you're just going to take these and pin these under everything else that you're gonna do to lock it in. Same thing we've always done take two bobby pins and lock it in with a cross. And that's all you need to do just to make thinner hair look like it has a little bit more depth and a little bit more height with a front braid. Stay tuned next week for our next tip of the week on splitting hairs. Thanks guys. I just broke up. All right so that guy's rolling in here this week. I got so much stuff. It's Christmas. We're gonna have it lose its color when I stretch my foot out. That is terrible. It looked like elephantitis. Gross. It hurts to crack my legs. Look, I'm just gonna sit like this. So I'm gonna hurt myself. All right, ready? Dad, do I look like a roly-poly? That's sad. Sit up straight, you won't. I can't. No, you can. I can't stop. What do you mean by a roly-poly? Like, where am I at with the camera here? All of me, right? So you're essentially down to the white chamber and you're... Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. That's fine, but am I blending in? I'm gonna get you spanks. In the blackness? You'll feel better that way. The shirt's buckling, but it's not like you. You know what I'm saying? The shirt's buckling. Very kind of you. Thank you, Dad. This damn shirt. The shirt's making me go back to my belly. See how my shirt's going like this? Yes. Yeah. Thank you, Dad. I don't know. Yeah, what he's trying to ask you is, does he look fat? That was my manly way of doing it. I don't think so. Thank you, Dad. But at the same time, I didn't want him to go to bed. Dad had a very man answer for that, too. Is he going or not? You're taking pictures of me. Every time. We're four minutes past. Past what? When I wanted to start. Your imaginary start time. The four minutes late or four minutes late? I don't have an imaginary start time. And it just never happens. Ever. In 30, what is this, nine episodes? Are we on 39? Not 40, right? Is it 38 or 39? 39. 39. No, not on 40. Yeah, it's 39. 39. No way are we on 40 yet? Yeah. That's going to be a party. Party. It will just be 39. That's why next week has to be at night because it's going to be a party. Hot up in this bitch. I know, we got the air cranked? No, it's the nice sunburn. 68. And the fact that you're layered, like it's not July. You're ready for winter. Brian's sunburn. Guess what season it is, folks? I know I was thinking about that. I was like, Brian's totally going to wear the tank top tonight and I'm wearing a jacket. A turtleneck. Yeah. Brian's actually in Hawaii and Matt's filming from. I know, Matt's on location in Poland. I'm a dead of winter. We just do a really good job of filming it to make it look like you guys saying it's too tight. There's a splice right here. If I were to reach across, my hand would disappear because you don't know. All right. You put the two shots together. I got you. I got you. We should try that. We should. I still want to do the green screen. I saw something the other day. Maybe episode 40 is green screen episode. I saw a show with a good green screen the other day. It was much kids playing around with the green screen. I'm like, that's what we're going to look like if we do it. Hi, I'm in Delaware. That's what I want to do. I want to have Delaware behind us. I want to wear green and just be floating heads. Yeah. Just be like, splitting hairs, floating heads. Well, I told you about the floating scissor thing that I want to do, right? So I want to wear a green suit and do an entire haircut so only the scissors are showing. But you wouldn't see the scissors. You see the scissors. But your fingers would be through it. There'd be areas that you're blocking. It wouldn't really work. But it would still be cool. Well, did you ever? You sped it up really fast. You were in Vegas that you're the Takashi did something kind of like that with people all dressed in black, like lifting the girl up. Yeah, that was like the opposite. That was cool. All right, we should get the show on the road. What do you think? Ready? I had my stuff done along with Dreia. We were an hour ago. Brian has one job before the show starts and it's to read that paper that I worked on last night. And it was done an hour ago. All right. Welcome to Splitting Hares. What is that face? I have a zone. I think it's a face of. There's a million emotions to go through when I listen to a conversation that we have. I think the tank top brought out a little bit more sass. And you know what's crazy? Yup. Not only do I have to have this conversation with you once. You have to listen to it. You have to listen to it and edit it over and over again. God, that must be hell. All week long. All right. Hey, guys, this is Matt Beck from Hi, Guys. Hey, you're weird. You don't warn us. We need like a three. One second. Like there's no warning. It's just, oh, shit. Here we go. Actually, I really just wanted to have a deeper voice when I did that. I was like, hey, guys! Hey, guys. This is Matt Beck. Welcome to Splitting Hares. Hello, guys. Thank you for watching. Baby. This is episode 39. OK. A little out of the face. Oh, we got so much to talk about. All right. Let's do this. Thank you. Ready?