 Hey guys, this is Matt Beck from FreeSalonEducation.com. We're here with Robert Passage and I'm excited to talk to you to hear about all things pivot point, right? So we're so I want to start off with your title what you what you're doing with the company and all of that So let's just right start there. All right. As you said Robert Passage I'm sort of the self-described global ambassador for pivot point but my real title is the chairman and CEO Company was founded in 1962 by my father Leo Passage Quite well known in the industry. Yes, and I took over that role About five years ago actually my father passed away four years ago. Okay, sadly lost my sister a year later So I'm the only active person from the second generation in the business Yes, I took on a lot of responsibility, but I have two kids that are in the business already Okay, and third who's doing something else, but in publishing with which aligns very well with our business and I have two A niece and a nephew who will probably be interested in the business as well. Okay. Oh, that's third generation coming on board Yeah, right. That's awesome. So we have I know I've been working closely with pivot point with our online store and all of that You have some really great new products coming out. You have great products that have been out I love the tripods the man it stands all that stuff So I want to talk about the quality that you guys put into The research the different things I think you can really tell when a company Truly cares about hairdressing and when it's just putting out a product to try to make some money Sure, and I definitely know that pivot point puts that thought process in so why don't you go through the thought process on? When you guys are coming up with new products, I'd love to hear about that and just What what's the research and development like what is all of that about well Matt? We really consider ourselves very innovative when it comes to education for our industry Our core business obviously is education. I'm going to talk to you a little bit about hair Obviously, we're in the hairdressing business. So here's an important component. It's a small part of our business, but a very important part As far as innovation is concerned Snapcap is something we launched about five years ago. This is the second version of snap cap I'm going to show you a little bit about how we're most of the major manufacturers in our industry use pivot point hair Because it showcases their products very well, right? I think what's unique about pivot points products number one They're a hundred percent human hair There are no animal hair byproducts or anything like that In addition to that and why do companies put animal hair and all that stuff? Cheaper lower the cost okay, but there's there's no benefit to it. There's no benefit to it We want our mannequins to act like they would on a real live client day-to-day, right? Even the implantation is very important, you know Hair grows a certain way our hair is implanted exactly like it would grow on a human head form right and Comes in variety of lengths variety of colors a variety of densities depending on what it is that you're trying to use it for And that's what I love because I've talked to ginger who works for your company And I've talked to her a lot and I love the passion behind Every hair that goes into the head, you know like ginger gets so excited about their eyelashes their eyebrows all that stuff And I love it and she said that you know the people that place the hair are artists They're artisans absolutely artisans. They've been trained for many years One of the things that we're really proud of at our company is we were recently certified SA8000 compliant, which is a social accountability standard, which we sought out ourselves all of our Manufacturing facilities overseas have been approved SA8000 which basically means we do not use any sort of forced labor of any kind We believe we're the only one in the industry that does this today. Yeah, most manufacturers use contracted labor most of that contracted labor is done in China using prison labor essentially and That's why a lot of these companies are able to offer their mannequins at such a low price Because they don't pay wages to the people who actually do the right, you know, so but we do so I sleep well at night knowing that Yeah, and I'm sure that you would you would say it's at any company out there that they could definitely go and get a Certification I would encourage every manufacturer to do that We'd all be on a level playing field that way You know our products are always more expensive, but I think most manufacturers that use our hair want to showcase their product Yeah, as if they would appear on a real-life human being. Yep, and I love so a couple other things I really like I have I have a few different types of the pivot point mannequins that I use one of them has a smaller head Right and and I've had actual people in the last couple weeks come up to me and say that they've used a smaller head in A class and why is that so can you go into that a little bit? Sure, you know, most classes are cutting workshops With a cutting workshop, you don't necessarily need a head form that imitates a life-size human head so we can reduce cost by Making the head form smaller. Yeah, so it's really price that drives the size of the head form When we use head forms that are very lifelike They're more used for design work Where you want to emulate at an actual human life head form Well, and I also think that what people should understand is when you have a smaller head It makes class flow from an educator standpoint It makes the class flow better and absolutely quicker so you can get through more haircuts as well Density has a lot to do with that as well Matt you know In order to keep the prices competitive Some of our smaller head forms use a slightly less density and again to your point Much easier to use in the classroom much easier to comb through and things like that Okay, it's the cost down and works really well great. So you guys when we speak about education You have how many schools now? Well pivot point Licenses its educational products in about two thousand schools in 80 countries around the world We train somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred thousand hairdressers a year that use our education Yeah, that's pretty pretty impressive. So you guys create the products you provide the education? I love it. I love all the DVDs that you guys do I actually got a chance when I was in Chicago last year I I went up to your corporate office and I got to see where you do the video shoots and all that is really cool Everything's in-house So it was really neat to experience that now I want to talk about this new product because we we've brought it on our podcast and I actually Purposely did not attempt it before I did it live in front of everyone, okay? Because some people were saying that it's difficult and I and I was told it wasn't and it's not It's really not difficult at all not at all the thing the key that you have so why don't you show how this works? Sure? So like I said Matt This is the second version. We launched the original snapcap about five years ago We had some difficulties with the application of the cap itself So of course we were looking for ways to improve it right so this second version the snap cap to Actually requires and you can use a key I don't have it tight right now But all you have to do is loosen the screw on the bottom of the head form as you loosen that screw You'll see that the cap itself just pops off 100% recyclable ABS plastic so You only need one head form right and multiple caps and as I said before the caps can a variety of length arrangements Color density, whatever you need you just buy the cap and only I love it I mean you could form a relationship with that head because it's gonna be with you for a long time That's how easy it is to pop it on tighten it take your key tighten it down real tight That's ready to go and everyone used to say as well if you lost the key Then you wouldn't be able to do that this cap, but that's not yeah You can do it by hand or even if it was stuck you could put any kind of tool, right? Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, air pliers if you need it, right? And then so that wants me to ask why they have this the bald cap on the top And I'm gonna assume it's so it looks like a head well It looks like a head a variety of reason prevents this from breaking a lot of schools use this actually to draw on Okay, right so you can draw sections parting patterns those types of things right on the cap Yeah, we're gonna keep that one fat Okay, so here it is with hair like I said before she's slightly used and abused this weekend because we've been showing her a lot But in any case same same process you just line her up on the head form like this There you go tighten the screw on the bottom. This is where you would want to use the key actually. Yeah, take the key And you lock her down. Yeah, and you wouldn't even know that it's a you wouldn't know this wasn't a regular mannequin Yeah, and the thing I love about pivot point mannequins is that the hair is is put in to go forward in the front And a lot of mannequins if you if you don't spend a little bit of extra money on a mannequin It always grows straight back right and when you try to teach in a class or you're trying to practice No for the most part no clients heads are gonna grow straight back So it's really hard to practice any fringe work or anything like that and this is always growing absolutely So I really like it. I think a lot of manufacturers do that because they can actually machine and plant the hair So again, it reduces price. Okay, and by machine and planning You don't get the same effect that you would if a person hand and planted that right by themselves It would just all be the same. So if you want to try it yourself and show the audience how easy it is to apply Yes So we'll just loosen her up Yeah, I love this and I love the fact that all you have to do is when you as a hair cutter After I do a haircut all I have to do is purchase another one of these instead of the whole thing better for the environment and For me, I have a client in Tokyo for example one of the largest beauty schools in the world 3000 Students they are required. They don't have like unlike the United States where you have a Student salon right they don't have a student salon every student gets 20 mannequins during the course of their two-year studies Times 3,000 that's 60,000 heads that end up in a landfill every year. Can you imagine how much waste that is? Yeah, that's just one school, right? So it's awesome. Thank you so much. Well, thank you Is there anything else? What else is going on it? Well our big thing right now? We just launched a new product called lab Stands for learn about beauty. Okay. It's an online integrated learning solution. Yes, basically a learning management system That's very social When you log on it's exactly like logging on to any type of social media site Facebook etc Okay, people learn socially today And that's our latest program it includes all of our great education first and class education What's nice about it is that schools can populate that LMS with education that they use themselves as well and incorporate that with ours Okay, and how do they so can any hairdresser log on to this or well? It's going to be available eventually for all hairdressers So it'll be a sort of a social community for not only future professionals But as well as professional hairdressers themselves. Okay, so it's just launching now Okay, I'd love to share it with you sometime. Yeah, get you to come back up to Chicago We have we just moved into new corporate headquarters another one. We have a new studio. Okay. All right We'd love to show you around and show you our new education. It's fantastic. Well, that would be great So last question as CEO, right? That's your title officially. So what's day-to-day life like? Walk me through your day because some you know, I want to I want to know what a CEO of pivot point does Well, like I said before I like to use the term global ambassador because Pivot point is now in about 80 countries around the world. Okay I spend most of my time on the road traveling not only domestically. We have Quite a few schools here in the United States but distribution around the world So I spend a lot of my time with them. I have a great team of people my father told me from an early age He said Robert surround yourself with good people Because you can't do it all yourself right and I have a wonderful team as you've as you've witnessed yourself Yeah, when you came to Chicago They all do a wonderful job and it makes my job that much easier, you know, so awesome. Yeah Well, thank you so much for sitting down with me. I really appreciate it Make sure that you guys check out everything pivot point and we have it off also on shop FSE But just you know, if you're looking to go to beauty school check out pivot point If you've been to beauty school check out pivot point, they have it all and the snap cap is awesome So definitely pick that up Anything else they can follow pivot point I'm probably the wrong person to ask yeah pivot dash point calm you can find us on Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest you name it so go to the website click on it. You'll find it. All right great Well, thank you so much. Thank you guys. Thank you to millennium systems International for letting us hang out at their booth at the Orlando premiere or premiere Orlando show whatever it is Here in Orlando, Florida. Thank you again, Robert. We appreciate it. Yes. Thank you very much. We'll see you guys on the next video Thanks. Thank you