 Hey guys, this is Matt Beck from freesaloneducation.com here with American Salon magazine. Thank you to this guy This is Gordon Miller. So we're at the premier beauty show in Orlando, Florida. Yep Really excited. I love sitting here. I love talking to hairdressers now. You are not a hairdresser, correct? But you're a big Part of the industry you've been a big part of the industry for a long time every connection I've ever had has come from you for the most part. So thank you. Let's talk about You're with American Salon. I am you just got a promotion. I am sure my titles publisher and vice president of integrated media So I'm still getting used to it. Yeah, what does that mean? That means that I'm a new kind of publisher Okay, so that's that's that's the fun part for me Like you said, I've been in the industry for a long time and I kind of came up in education I have a business degree. I'm not a hairdresser, right? But I like when I was 22 I got a part-time job in a beauty school Okay, didn't plan to stay it was a temporary didn't even tell mom and dad You know, it was like I'm just I didn't know what I was gonna do with my life And I like fell in love with the beauty industry. I fell in love with the people and It's been 38 years, you know grew up in education that kind of informed me I knew how powerful it was and so I had a career in educational publishing Okay, did my own consulting thing for a while and digital and social when I kind of learned it had this opportunity to do Consulting with a couple of the trade magazines finally American They invited me to stay on and and help develop a strategy for social and digital media for publishing Which is a changing world right now, right? And and recently they said you want to be publisher at first I wasn't so sure because publishers are traditionally on the sales and marketing side of the business right I've had a lot of my career has been involved in that but My current passion is content and just this is content, right? Right. I love you because you're a great content producer and you've done a lot of interviews with great hairdressers for us And so I'm honored to be sitting with you But as a publisher my passion and my focus and my everyday life is all about content and making us Just an amazing platform for hairdressers to engage and learn and be inspired from and so that's my life Well, I know and me and you are obviously embracing the thing I love about what American songs doing you right now is you're embracing the new Kind of I don't know if it's culture or what it is, but it is young people and older people creating content Constantly and I like I was just had an interview this morning and we were talking about the 2018 Collection that one of the companies is coming out with which is great But I said I'm from the world now where I think of something today I put it out tomorrow, right, you know because the everything's evolving so quickly. So what do you think? I love the the path that American salon is taking right now So tell me about your vision for what you want media to be like for through American salon and for hairdressers was it starts with, you know 365 days 24-7 because I was just We just did a panel with some social media rock stars. We're doing one tomorrow with you We had Jenny Streebe and Philip ring and and Silas Ricardo Santiago and and we Phil said, you know, he's like, I'm up at five o'clock in the morning online Learning and he's like, that's just who I am Yeah, and the idea that anybody can find anything learn anything engage with other people globally In the moment and there's no limits. Yeah, and then we can embrace those platforms and bring them to hairdressers It's life-changing for many people and it's a game-changer for publishers So for me, it's like when we think about content because that's what we do, you know the magazine It's this is old-school content, but but I'm an old-school guy So I still appreciate it. We know people of all ages still appreciate their print Yeah, appreciate that this is also in an app, but we're gonna be with Sam via in a little bit You're gonna interview Sam via which is really cool, right? Yeah And then we're gonna do one of my editors Andrea is going to do something called word play a new column in American Salon they're gonna do it on video so that when the magazine comes out in August We'll also see Sam talking about it. So my job is to extend content right to make it fit Everybody's need wherever they want it whenever they want it and be creative in doing it and work with people like you our own Editorial team and all the people we know and love in this industry Okay, so so the word play thing is going to be it's it so it gets people involved in every aspect or every format Basically word what word plays an example of something we're doing with Sam Which is really a column in the magazine okay magazine shows up in print it shows up as an app It shows up as a website book and it shows up an article form But the integrated part me being integrated media is now I'm integrating a print article with digital Now with a video component rather than just getting on the phone and doing the interview old school Right now We're gonna let people watch who want to watch that versus maybe read it or both awesome That's really cool. So ever since you you joined American son I know that you made changes to the website you've done quite a bit of things with like daily blogs and different things So tell me about some of that. What's happening day-to-day? with American son Well again 24-7. I feel like we know 24-7. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah content You know creation is a kind of a never-ending task. I have a team. We're so passionate about it. You know We do get up and and sometimes check Instagram while we're still in bed and we're checking the American salon Instagram We hit 450,000 followers yesterday. That's awesome. And we've grown it from 5,000 14 months ago and we did it organically and by just busting our butts and so it's just a lot It's just doing it doing it doing it following the best practices and being authentic being real knowing our audience You know again, you're so good at it You know the you produce content and we share some of your content, right? That's a big part of our job is Identifying and sharing content that we know our audience will engage in Promoting the people we know that are are doing great stuff so that the audience has access to them You know, it's not all about us It's about the audience and it's about providing value and Ultimately connecting them back to our advertiser partners who are also creating great content creating great products tools It's so it's a gigantic job that we are constantly fine-tuning to be able to best serve everybody And you put together a great team and I think a lot of you guys out there that You know, you're looking to grow your social media and all of that Yeah, it's it's great to connect with companies like American sign Like you should be hashtagging American sign and everything that you do because the only way that you are going to be Kind of it's all about building relationships Which we talk about a lot. Yeah build that relationship with a company Let them know that you're doing great content and you're creating stuff You can't just put stuff out there has to have a connection point in there somewhere totally so And that's where I found it I Tag American salon and a lot of the stuff that I do and it gets passed along and then you get Followers from that and it's a great relationship To build there so any of you guys out there that are trying to build that Definitely use American salon hashtag in that way, um, please please so the other a couple other things because I you are You're not just the publisher guy at American salon like you We have conversations on the phone I want to talk about you've been a part of this industry who's talked about it since 22 Is that when I was 22 since 1978? Okay boy so you so when you start in the beauty school and then you worked for other Trade companies. Yeah, and you started doing your consulting. Yeah, so tell me What you think the most important thing is because I think a lot of people just think they go out They work hard and it's just gonna happen Yeah, I know you've built your career on relationships So let's talk about that a little bit because you have more like you do have a lot of connections And you've built that through you know through what how did that happen? Wow So it goes back To my first really mentor and I think mentorship is so important and it's part of the answer to the question Yeah, so the most important mentor in my professional life was Leo Passage Founder pivot point. I call him my business dad. I He passed away a few years ago now as a picture on my desk when I don't know what to do I think what would Leo do? because I believed I learned from him so much and I believed in so much of the things that he believed in that made great Careers for so many people okay beginning with networking, you know He was a master networker and he dragged me along for ten years And I was a part of that with him and he always encouraged me to do more of it And he would send me places when he couldn't go and encourage me to do that And and so I was a kind of a power networker from early on but most important on the mentorship side was he introduced Me to all these really successful people, you know rock stars, you know Rock stars salon owners stylists platformers educators who who Taught me in my conversation. So I'm always like how did you succeed the answer was almost always the same networking? Yeah by Introducing yourself don't be afraid to put yourself out there Don't be afraid to ask questions just because somebody's around just because it's Robert Cromings Don't be afraid to walk up and say hey Robert. I'm Gordon. We've never met before I'm a fan and trust me Robert's gonna give you a hug at minimum Answer any question you probably ask them well And that's I think that was the hard part for me because you look at those people that are out there They're on stage. They're doing they're on YouTube. They're what doing whatever and but you got to realize that they We all start the exact same way We all started in beauty school nervous and confused Yep, and and some people study hard and work hard every day to grow Yeah, and then you know and so don't be nervous to you to jump on to ask questions from people Because everybody if they're in this show floor if they're something they're whole goals to teach yep Yeah, and the other side of that is is Being in a big show, you know is to show up, you know I mean it's to show up You got to show up and do the work and that was Leo was passionate about that He'd tell all of us you got to show up and do the work. I was with him for 11 years I was am a workaholic, but the entire pivot point team back in the day We would we would bleed for him, you know and and because we believe not only in him But he just he taught us the value of showing up and you chose the value of hard work and and what we got back from it Was just was amazing. It was it's fulfillment, you know, it's growth. It's connections And if you do it, all right, you know, you just developed this passion. Yeah, and that's where my passion I think comes from is from my time with him. Yeah, I mean there's not there's not a better family than the pivot point family I actually I have a meeting with them tomorrow that I'm floored about and you know, and that's that's what it's all about It's all about the connections So tell me if there's anything you want to pass along that's coming up or anything neat going on with you Besides the promotion besides the the great content all that stuff. What what would you say? well, I mean the platforms are expanding, you know, so The short version of the bigger social media conversation is you know, and I think you're at the forefront of this In the industry it's going to be all video all the time. Yeah, and so we our plan for 2017 is to blow up video in a really big way. Yeah, both in sharing great content because we're finding more and more great content Producers and we're encouraging other people to come to produce great content. We're producing great stuff Pete win our videographers an amazing guy Helps us puts artist stories one of our series together. We have a great YouTube channel Americans along stories So I think you can find a lot of what we're doing online, obviously We show up at all the events, you know, we're doing two classes here. We'll be teaching at Beacon Next weekend. This may not even be out yet, but the American Board of Certified Hair Colorist. We're doing a keynote there Next 12 months everywhere and anywhere we can get to we'll be doing it and we're starting a series of Instagram pop-up panels around the country where we'll just do a short announcement. We're in New York We're gonna get three or four great Instagrammers together do a pop-up free to our hairdresser friends With short notice and we're gonna be doing those at some of the leading academies around the country Oh, that's cool. That's really cool. Yeah, and so the key thing that I definitely heard you say is great content And I think a lot of you guys out there that are looking to maybe try to build your brands or do whatever It is every time I make a video I look at what I want to watch this and would it bring value to me Yeah, and I think that's something that American Slime definitely looks at because when you watch the content It's all about the hairdresser, you know about growing the hairdresser and let me say one last thing about that You know that's again so powerful that I learned a long time ago And it's been reinforced time and time and time again as I have traveled for all these years is that It's usually like one kind of almost magical thing that somebody bumps into an idea that they hear at a show More often than not today in a video in a Facebook post in an Instagram post that one little spark You know that set you on fire that can transform a life, you know And I'm big about asking people the stories behind their lives Especially some of the stars and there's almost always there's like this moment. Yeah, I met this person I heard these words and that's the power of all the stuff we're talking about and the more you engage in it The more chance you have to find that for some people maybe it's a needle in a haystack But if you don't jump in the haystack, you never gonna find it exactly so true. All right, great Well, let's see so follow American salon everything American salon everything America's on Facebook snapchat YouTube Instagram is American Underscore so long. I mean, I'm sure you guys are following obviously Yep, you never know and use that hashtag and tag American son and everything and also free son education because it's all about if you're Putting out good content. We want to know about it and want to share it with everybody else and thank you Thank you for the professional beauty industry for supporting American salon and to you Matt Beck for doing this with us and being a premiere I'm doing a whole lot of interviews and thank you for having more with you. Yes, awesome Thank you guys so much for watching and we'll see you guys on the next video. Thanks. Thanks Gordon. Thanks