 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 gonna 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, you know, 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're 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 that 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 in 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. Yeah. 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. I once got robbed at gunpoint. I 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. Yeah. I don't 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. Right. 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 worried for the future of the industry because I don't think we're putting so many people out there to believe in. Right. 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. Right. 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, you know, 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 know, you think about loyalty and the people you hang around. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. So, you know, I've just been so fortunate to be believing in one company. People used to laugh at me as I go, you're the Paul Mitchell guy. Right. They don't laugh today, Matt. Yeah. They kind of go, oh, I wish I'd done that. Right. 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. Yeah. 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're about. Nothing's in our way of stopping us doing anything. Right. 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, you know, I'm a natural problem solver. Right. And I think that's a great part of my ingenuity. That'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 that, 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 had, 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 polemical 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. 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. 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 in 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 and 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. 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 and be 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 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. Cromins 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 with a shirt 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. 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, you know, jaw lines and different descriptors about facial features, he made them sound like so sexy, you know. 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. Right. So that's what I love is when you look at somebody's beginning story, just go back to my beginning story, delivering pizza, going to beauty school at 24. You know, 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. Yeah. 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 close 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 becoming an acquired result that instead of get the hair, 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 hair cutting. 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. 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. 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. 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, smart-minded people just like great hairdressers. I just think there's not enough business and we're here at the Millennium Conference. I love this conference because I can score the same way these people do. We do. Our schools do. So it's very apples to apples. So this conference is one of my favorites I do. Not the biggest audience I do in some of these rooms, but the intent is 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 in 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 understandable no matter what you built. There was a guy before Susan came along, his name was Teasy Weezy. He was the first hairdresser of his own private jet. He had an entourage of 32 people that traveled with him. Wow. He was a roller setting king. He did Hollywood movies. He's been credited on Hollywood. When Vidal started this precision haircutting, Teasy Weezy said that'll never catch on. Teasy Weezy died many years later, broke. Okay. 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. Yeah. 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. Right. So, who owns it? I'm not quite sure about that. Understand that you've got to keep reinterpreting your business after it never stops. Yeah. I mean, I went, 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 said and I can't doubt if 20% of the industry is automated. It can only be really one reason. Some people don't want to declare everything so they want to hide and I'm just saying. Yeah. 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. 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 a hundred grand 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 addresses 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 Mevo. 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. Right. 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. Yeah. 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, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. Yeah. Like, what are you saying? Too much talk, not enough action. Right. I said it today when I said open up the show. Stop taking shit, start doing shit. Get busy, do a photo shoot, get out there, put it out there. Right. 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 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, I didn't need to leave live in New York or Manhattan to get it all. Right, I started in Iowa. It makes no difference. Yeah. 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. Right. Tell me what drives you crazy with passion because too much negatory in the world. Yeah. The platformer says 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 playing the hate game. Yeah. They're player haters. Like we're rap stars. Yeah. We have this. They don't have this. Yeah, it's back. Point 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. Right. And we've got 600, 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. Even though I'm 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. What they grow more than any other company I have 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 is 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 are my customer, you get me for free. So there's a benefit to it. I'm just saying that if you've got something to do and manufacturers are 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 my 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 BeautySkillOn. 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 are and 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 but 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. Yeah. There's no difference. And I think that 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 another event talking to people like you and, you know, 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, you know. 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. Yeah. You can see it from satellites looking down as such a man-made fixture. Wow. And I said, I'm going to go to the 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. Yeah. 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. Yeah. 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. I don't know what the reality is 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. Right. 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 it on the big stage. 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 far 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 I'm floored and I can't wait to bring it into my salon. So what? I hope John Harms never hears this. Yeah. But when I first became a customer has 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 streamline 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 concert in salon. So I'm just saying like it or not, I repeat, 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 a control, merchandise, inventory, balance their checkbook, pay taxes and all this stuff. So what I love about this is very catered towards the independent where I see it for my big salons. I could see 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'm inspired by numbers. Numbers speak to me. It's a beautiful thing. So I think hairdressers, they start to get it and the simple part of it and the graphics and all the thing. It speaks hairdresser too. And I think they're going to love it and the choices and options and 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. 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 an excuse when people say I'll get money they get stupid. 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 Palm Mitchell and he would be a partner I would recommend MD in the world that and that's why we're partners today. The first time I went to I was at this conference it was you just know it's just like being at a Palm Mitchell the 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 we're focused on making something look good and then putting it out they got all the graphs all the bells and whistles all the stuff but what got me with John he said what does your reservation do if 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 to every day and we do it every single day we keep scoring we do more the old way and wonder where we went wrong you can't fix it look 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 I 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 a motion the new way is running on statistics and knowing that there's actually a DNA of success and if you really 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 I mean that's what I did I listen to your CDs and seriously over and over driving to palmatial classes back and forth in my car and you know you just implement I was able at 25 to buy San Bern 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 you know develop it and try to make it my own feeling you know 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 this is John doesn't know this but this is kind of fun because most of these people don't know me at this event you know so they kind of come in with this little like oh I'm not going to touch him he's going to sell me palmatial but what I really do I make statements that you're in love with your hairdresser we talk about it matters who you do business with so you know 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 this is not 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 in a career path so to me if we could do something together it'd be getting people 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 scoring 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 in 1980 called they want their 8 track back it is time for you to embrace it whether it's twitter I don't even know them all I can't even keep up 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 that's the part 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 right 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 sharp but what could I have done I'm just saying well I'm 30 years in I'll be successful what can you do to accelerate if you're doing 5 a day that's making you 5 good if you're doing 10 clients a day you'll be better right you want to double your experience you got to double your clientele that's not just to make more revenue it'll help your speed pick up a girl said to me yesterday I'm running behind all the time and you know it takes me this long and I did 4 haircuts in 20 minutes 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 I cut 4 heads and I was still working on my first one and by the time I finished working with Gina's 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 placement 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 to making a video but real time you got to be able to do that you can 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's something crazes me when I see people how little they're prepared to do 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 going to do whatever it takes to get there and that's the remarkable people that we'll see in our future that will be where you prepare for it I mean the hair show you come here you get inspired but then you got to 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 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 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 just smoothly slide off stage but somebody said are you going to 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 want to give it up to do what I've got this as a young kid the circus came to Thailand I was six or seven 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 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 she was proud 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 the next day Tekashi 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 Tekashi fixed it and then 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 a wee boy that means when you were a little boy did you ever imagine in your wildest dreams you'd be travelling 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 yeah just like people before as did from Vidal to Paul and etc etc so I never take it for granted I never take it you know I want the audience to come but I never take it 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 dream and excited like we do we'll have to ask but to me it's about this passion point 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 honour we'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 I hurt in 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's a lot of things you could have done you just skipped lunch for this so thank you very much Robert my pleasure my make sure that you follow us on Facebook 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 rockstar yesterday 2.2 million Jesus I feel like Justin Bieber but you know the thing about it is you 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 I appreciate that do the right thing with always in any way we can help each other you can always count on me alright Robert thank you very much we'll see you guys on the next video thanks