 Hey guys, this is Matt Beck from freesalon education. I'm here with a new friend Nick Stenson from Matrix and JC Penney, right? Yes, correct. We're gonna get into your title there where American Slon hooked us up with the interview So check out AmericanSalon.com Today what we're gonna talk about you have a lot of things going on right a little bit So we're gonna talk about juggling jobs and all different stuff And you have you you just have a lot of interesting things that I want to pull out of you So that doesn't sound right So so let's go let's start off with You are working with Matrix. What do you do for Matrix? I'm the artistic director on a design team as well as celebrity stylist for them. Okay, cool And you and you also are with JC Penney correct and what are you doing with them? So I am the senior creative director over the brand. Okay, we have 840 salons across the country Okay, so I oversee all creative direction for the company. That's it's very interesting to me JC Penney has taken a quick turn. Yes like with especially with the salon business. Yes So I really want to find out a little bit more about that. So tell me You're a creative director for all of JC Penney. All of JC Penney. That's awesome So to give you a little bit of a background, you know, JC Penney has 840 salons We've had them for the past 50 plus years and they've been branded JCP salon Okay, really not the most exciting sexy name in the world. So a couple years back We said, you know when you think of like JC Penney and you think of JC Penney salons You think of oh, you know what my Grammy used to take me there when I was a kid Or you know, I remember going in when I was a kid Yeah So when I came on board and as the company has kind of evolved it says how do we take this amazing brand and give it some Newness right and new excitement to it So they brought me in a little over four years ago to kind of come in and oversee all creative direction So all education oversee all marketing digital social for the brand Okay, but then also within the last 24 months we have partnered with in-style magazine Oh, wow to now create a new salon concept called the salon buy-in style Okay, so we are going to be rebranding all of our salons to be called the salon buy-in style. Oh, that's cool I like that so that'll be and that'll be within JC Penney. Yes And JC Penney took a shift even within their stores So it seems like it was that when they decided that they wanted to change the branding of the salon or did that? I think it's been an evolution the last few years You know the company is evolving to the times and you know what the consumers looking for and how they shop And it's the same with how the consumers looking for a salon and the types of services they want and experiences they want Okay, and how do you um, how did you become so creative director of all the salon salons? How do you with 800 different places? How do you keep that under control? That's very interesting to me Sure, I have a salon with four employees, and it's hard enough It's hard to manage so tell me tell me what your positions like within that part of it Sure, so we have a little over 13,000 associates Okay, 840 salons. That's a lot of personalities a lot of personalities We you know, it's pretty cool. I'm very fortunate I have a design team of three that create all the trends that you see that come out of our salons Okay, plus myself and then we have a full-time education team of 55 out in the field So there's one per district across the country that goes out and teaches hands-on education to all of our stylists Okay, so what's great about that is we're one of the only organizations that has full-time educators number one and number two We do all hands-on education for our stylists great and not only do we not charge them to get the education We pay them to come to training nice, so we're all about really elevating our stylist skill set in making sure that they're Charged with the best tools that they need for their pocket in order to be able to give any type of service If you think about 840 salons across the country You have tons of different types of clients that are coming in and wanting a lot of different services Right, so we really want to make sure that no matter who walks through the door We can give them the service that they want and deliver on a really great experience awesome And so how has the growth been within the salons? It's been amazing it's really been amazing and you know what it's been a culture shift and It's been a percept a perception change and now we're going through an identity change So right now it's a little wonky because we're JCP salon and the salon buy-in style as we rebrand because as you can imagine 840 salons it cost a few dollars to do this So we have to do it really slow and steady and make sure that the formula we come up with is sound that we can roll out Across the country tell me like with that formula what what do you think you could implement from the formula that you've done? to start to grow those salons in Somebody else's line in the middle of America that just has one salon What do you think they could do a little bit different that you've seen that has helped kind of? Grow sure you know the JC penny company. I will tell you the number one Most important thing you have to remember is the people so you can spend a million dollars on a build out and make a Look the most amazing is the salon in the world But if you don't have the heart and the soul and the talent that is in there you're done It's dead in the water, so we've really invested a tremendous amount back into the experience back into the stylist back into really Training them on how to be that business person and be successful, and it starts with the consultation I mean it really starts when they booked the appointment Then it goes into the consultation the entire experience and then the way that they leave and then the follow-through with that And it's really building that infrastructure that has been so successful for us and getting it Consistent across the country because as you can imagine eight hundred and fifty you know forty doors Everybody's got a different way to do it right So what we want to do is if you're let's say on vacation and you're in New York But you live in LA you can get the same experience in both cities and that's something that's rare And it's something that we really want it's hard to do right and we want to get to the point to where all of our Salons are running at that same speed Yeah, so that we can ensure to the customer that hey, you know what come on in you're gonna get a really great service Yeah, and what we want to be is we don't want to be the cheapest guy in town You don't want to be the most expensive guy in town. We kind of I like to say it's like affordable luxury You know you come in you feel really great about the whole experience and then you get the price at the end You're like wow that wasn't so bad. Yeah, you know, so it's it's something for value is there the value is there And so you have so JC penny salons like I think for me Being a salon owner. I think the number one thing has always been like implementing systems So do you The systems in place. What do you think from a consultation standpoint? Do you have it all written out? We do exactly the way that they you know should go about it. Yes, okay So we have actually a book called the client experience that we take them through there's actually two modules And it's it's a hands-on class basically and we do role-playing and we go through all the different points of Interaction the touch points throughout the service from the receptionist at the front desk to the person who shampooing to the person Answering the phone to the service provider all the way out until the follow-up and it's really about just Getting a hairdresser to understand the importance of that full-circle Experience about what you're applying on the hair all the time. Yeah, because a lot of times what happens is and I tell stylist This all the time I don't care how good you are if you're not really listening to the person in your chair Yeah, it doesn't matter how amazing that haircut or color was that time that person if it's not what they want Exactly, so then you lost. Yeah, you know So you have to have that that point of really paying attention Understanding and getting that connection with the person in your chair before the service ever becomes anything nice. So and you So what I also thought was exciting is you I I'm in the live streaming world Yes, you started some live streaming yourself like you how long you've been doing that a little over a year a little over a Year and it started out just JCP salons, right? So yeah, you know, what's pretty amazing about JC Penney? We have this big company right in our offices are in Texas Excuse me, and the one thing that I always found so amazing We have a TV studio in the building. Oh, wow that looks like something you'd see on 42nd Street I mean, it's like amazing city-to-the-art facility Okay, and I was like what can I do with this to connect our associates because when you think of you know 840 salons, it's hard to keep them all connected. Yeah, and you think about your four people that work Right, you want to keep them connected to feel that they're part of this culture, right? So my biggest thing was how do I connect everybody together? And then how do I also connect our vendors to our stylists in a bigger way? Right, so I came up with this concept called live-in extents And so it's basically a way because I was getting people that say to me Can you come to my salon? Can you come to my salon? I want to meet you I want to know like I want to pick your brain and although I would love to do that I remember the first week on the job my boss said to me well What's the first thing you want to do? I said the first thing I want to do is get into all our salons and she says and what's your timeline for that? I said well within the next year and she says How are you gonna do that? I didn't even think about it. Yeah, I was like what do you mean? Yeah, that's like five salons a day It's impossible. I don't think you really realize how large we are right and that's when it hit me like just a brick wall And I was like this is a big beast like how are you gonna reach that many people? How are you gonna reach so many people so this talk show concept is kind of like a cross between Ellen and Oprah Kind of set up and we recreated my living room in the middle of this studio. I have a live studio audience We bring in guests that come sit on the couch live studio real-life studio audience. Wow. Yeah. All right So it's pretty cool. We bring our stylists in they get with a wind trips to come beyond in the live studio audience Okay, I have all the industry's best presenters and educators around the country that I invite on to the show We do an internal magazine as well that kind of piggybacks off of it So like let's say I invite Sam Villa Let's say to come in and do a shoot with me for the cover of our magazine Then I invite him on the show and then he'll do a technical live right there Yeah, well, you know, we'll tape it and it could be played again and again for our stylists to really hone their skills You guys have that it's really cool It's really cool Then we raffle off like we do a spin it to win a thing or we raffle off trips to go to different vendors education My own education The latest in product innovation that's out there and everybody in the audience walks away with something So that's a it's a really exciting thing. It is especially for Because I know JCPenney salon. I got my frosted tips with there you go When I was a kid nobody But that's the thing like the evolution like finally company has decided to evolve and you know stick with the times You're doing a great job at that for sure. So tell me with all of that going on You also have a job with matrix. I do tell me tell me how does that work? so it's really a great marriage honestly between the JCPenney gig and the Matrix gig because I Talk about great places to come get your hair done. Yeah, that's JCPenney, right? I talk about great products to get your hair to look amazing You buy them at JCPenney and you can buy them at JCPenney. So it's this amazing kind of like yin and yang to each other Okay, I work on an amazing team of artists Artistic directors that create all the trends we do all the big industry events trade shows Workshops, okay, celebrity stylists for them. So I do a lot of on-camera stuff I'm actually gonna be doing something tomorrow on Las Vegas morning show So we do a lot of things like that I just did the Wendy Williams show and it's really about like makeovers and new innovation and products and how to make Everybody successful behind the chair and then for anything national like that for a consumer It's like how to get the look okay Very cool. And then so are you on social media and stuff? I am people follow you you can the easiest way is to Go to nextenton.com and then you could link up to me on anything. I'm on snapchat I'm on Instagram Facebook Not good. I have to be honest. It's awkward to me. It is an awkward platform It is like nieces are like nine and seven and they're like obsessed with it and every day They send me a snap. So I'm like snapping more of them But yeah, I always feel like I'm never as interesting as right people want me to be so it's so fun And like I snap and I look at it and I go that's down And even pictures like for social media like they're like people want to see what you're doing where you're at I'll take pictures and I'll be like nobody cares. Why am I doing that? Like what am I posting that actually? So there's a there's an app called beam which is very similar to snapchat, but it's like live, okay? But they don't let you preview what you just record. Oh, so it just puts it out there Which in a way is bad better I wish snapchat was like that because yeah You you record it and then it replays it for you and you're like, yeah I don't know I see every reason why I should not are you trying to connect it to your business Or are you finding it more of like just kind of a personal reach for people? So this is kind of how I'm doing it right now, and I don't know if it's right or wrong But anybody knows that answer with snapchat. I make it very silly like everything in my life That intends to be very serious. Okay, you know because I'm moving so fast and there's so many things that I'm doing so I think on like Twitter and Facebook and Instagram I I'm very business focused and then I'll throw a little bit of like out having drinks type thing But right, you know, it's a lot of business inherent in the industry where snapchat It's like literally like I'll be like I'm stuck on this airplane again for four hours on the runway It's the glamorous life, you know kind of thing So I try to make it a little more silly and fun because that's one thing that I it's interesting people are like We love all this information that we're getting from you We love what you're sharing with us, but like we want to know about you Yeah, and to me that seems weird like I think like why do you care? Like why do I'm not that exciting of a person but then people are like no We really are intrigued by like what do you do when you're not doing hair? What do you do when you're not on TV or what do you do when you're not? JCPenney or matrix. Yeah, they want to see your real life Yeah, yeah, and I think that that's just in general with people you look at some of the biggest celebrities and YouTube people and just different They're sharing their entire life exactly and but you're learning from them at the same time, right? You know, so that's very cool So tell me I guess the last little bit. Is there anything new going on with? Matrix you want to put out there because I know that you know you're sitting down here for that sure reason What's going on with matrix upcoming? I'll tell you there's so many good things happening at matrix right now We have amazing portfolios amazing range of products But something that's new that's hitting the streets pretty soon is a new product line called raw So it's our first organic line. So it has ingredients from places like Morocco I mean like really amazing totally different looks almost like the packaging almost looks like a milk bottle. Oh, that's you would buy So it's really cool. It's very disruptive in this in the you know market space And it's amazing product. We can't wait to launch this so that's coming this fall that comes this fall Yes, all right, cool. And so you can follow matrix everything matrix. Everybody knows that and And for you, what's what's next? I think the biggest thing right now is I have Been using a hashtag for the longest time and it's called I see your beauty. Okay, and it's something that I see your beauty Okay, so and it started off as like I just was looking at things and found it beautiful and started putting hashtag Well, it's morphed into kind of it's starting to get to be a movement in a sense And I'm challenging other people to say how do you this is how I see beauty. How do you see beauty? Okay? So it's funny people are starting to get obsessed with the whole I see your beauty Well, when you think about it, that's our function as hairdressers, right? it's to see beauty and somebody who sits in their chair and Probably beauty that they don't realize that they have right so I'm starting with like coming out with t-shirts and different things Like that because people are just obsessed with this whole hashtag thing So that's pretty fun and I'm kind of leveraging that a little bit more okay and working on that more to come I can't kind of go into a lot of details, but some exciting stuff for probably around holiday coming up All right cool And all they have to do is follow you on on social media everywhere and they'll get that information so awesome Well, thank you so much for sitting down. It's a pleasure American salon. Thank you for hooking us up Thank you interview and I appreciate you Thank you guys so much for watching definitely check us out on other videos and check out Nick Stenson on everything Social media. Thank you guys for watching. We'll see you on the next video