Salon Retention Unlocked: Build a Legendary Team

Summary

In this episode of the Brazen and Bold podcast, renowned business coach and consultant Nikki Lee shares her expertise on modern business systems, particularly in the salon industry. Nikki emphasizes the importance of understanding employee dynamics, effective compensation structures, and team leadership to foster a productive workplace. With insights into the evolving employment market, she sheds light on creating meaningful, performance-based compensation and the significance of integrating personal growth paths for employees. Offering practical advice on recruitment and retention, Nikki highlights the importance of customizing business practices to meet the diverse needs of today's workforce.

Highlights

• Nikki Lee shares the importance of bridging relational work dynamics between managers and employees. 🤝
• Modern compensation structures should be performance-based to ensure motivation and fairness. ⚖️
• With a background in psychology, Nikki provides deep insights into team leadership and business systems. 🧠
• Diverse industries, not just beauty, can benefit from tailored employee management practices. 📊
• Nikki discusses the significant generational shifts in employee expectations and how businesses must adapt. 🌍

Key Takeaways

• Understanding relational dynamics between employees and employers is key to modern business success. 💬
• Performance-based compensation structures are essential to motivate today's workforce. 🎯
• Personal and business skill development is integral to growing successful teams. 📈
• Nikki Lee emphasizes the need for customized paths for employee growth and retention. 🚀
• Employers must adapt to new employee expectations and embrace technology to thrive. 💻

Overview

In a lively discussion on the Brazen and Bold podcast, business coach and consultant Nikki Lee delves into the critical aspects of building a legendary team within the salon industry. Known for her expertise in business systems, Nikki shares her journey from an accidental start in the beauty industry to becoming a leading figure in employee advocacy and organizational structure. The conversation is not just about salons; Nikki’s insights are applicable across service industries, emphasizing modern approaches to leadership and compensation.

Nikki's approach centers around understanding the intrinsic dynamics between employees and managers. She encourages businesses to adopt performance-based compensation systems to fuel motivation and fairness. With a strong foundation in psychology, she brings a unique perspective to team leadership, stressing the importance of personal development paths for long-term employee retention. Her experience in the beauty industry provides a backdrop for discussing broader HR and leadership challenges across various sectors.

The podcast episode also explores the significant shifts in team dynamics influenced by generational changes and technological advancements. Nikki highlights the necessity for businesses to remain adaptable and responsive to new workforce expectations, advocating for innovative recruitment strategies and holistic employee management. Her comprehensive view of these modern business challenges makes her insights invaluable for any industry looking to enhance their leadership and team-building strategies.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:30: Introduction of Mickey Lee The chapter 'Introduction of Mickey Lee' begins with a warm introduction by the host of the Brazen and Bold podcast, expressing excitement to welcome the guest, Mickey Lee. The host refers to Mickey Lee as a personal friend and someone influential in their life. The tone is friendly and appreciative, setting the stage for an engaging conversation.
• 01:30 - 03:00: Mickey Lee's background and business The chapter provides an overview of Mickey Lee's professional background and current business endeavors. Mickey Lee is portrayed as a business coach and consultant with a focus on various aspects of business operations, including systems, compensation, pricing, and personal development. Additionally, Lee emphasizes the importance of leadership team infrastructure. The chapter highlights Lee's role as the principal of Nikki Lee Consultancy, an education firm that advocates for employers and specializes in organizational structure, recruitment marketing, modern hiring practices, and digital onboarding.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Mickey Lee's journey as an entrepreneur Mickey Lee is introduced as a remarkable and inspiring entrepreneur with a focus on improving workplace dynamics. Her work emphasizes bridging the gap between managers and employees, which she passionately addresses in her discussions and presentations. The speaker expresses gratitude and enthusiasm for the knowledge and experiences Mickey Lee can share, indicating a dynamic and insightful session ahead. Mickey Lee responds with gratitude and humor, appreciating the warm and flattering introduction.
• 05:00 - 08:00: Discussion on employment relationships and HR The chapter discusses employment relationships and human resources, focusing on the speaker's admiration and respect for Nikki Lee. The speaker describes Nikki as someone they truly admire, suggesting they would be her 'number one hype girl,' indicating strong support and admiration. The speaker values honesty, stating they always tell the truth, especially about Nikki's impressive qualities, such as her passion and strength. The chapter highlights the value of genuine relationships and respect in professional settings.
• 08:00 - 12:00: Impact of technology and compensation structures The chapter delves into the impact of technology and compensation structures on various aspects of work, emphasizing the blend of psychology and personal development. It highlights the importance of ethics in professional interactions, showcasing stellar ethical practices observed in business journeys. An entrepreneur shares insights on their path, expressing admiration for a peer's communication skills and professionalism.
• 12:00 - 15:30: Generational dynamics in the workforce The chapter 'Generational dynamics in the workforce' begins with an engaging and personal narrative. The speaker shares their reflections on childhood, highlighting how they were always a planner. From a young age, they were focused on organizing their future, which included moving out, buying a car, obtaining their first job, and earning money through summer activities like babysitting. This planning and forward-thinking attitude indicate an aspect of their personality that has possibly influenced their professional life and interactions in the workforce.
• 15:30 - 21:00: Creative compensation strategies This chapter explores creative compensation strategies with a focus on the personality traits that drive individuals towards entrepreneurial ventures. The speaker highlights how intrinsic traits like overachievement and solution-oriented thinking naturally guide them towards entrepreneurship. Their constant drive to improve processes and create solutions is emphasized as key to their approach in developing innovative compensation strategies.
• 21:00 - 26:00: Importance of personal and business skills The chapter discusses the significance of personal and business skills through a conversation between two individuals who find common ground in their experiences. One speaker shares their unexpected career path, initially intending to become a psychologist but eventually working in the beauty industry. The narrative highlights the generational difference in financial responsibility for education, noting that Generation X often had to self-fund their college education, unlike millennials. This personal experience underlines the necessity of developing both personal and business skills to navigate such challenges.
• 26:00 - 33:00: Leadership and holistic growth In this chapter, the speaker shares their unexpected journey into the salon industry despite having an academic background in psychology and communication. They describe how their natural inclination is towards simplicity and authenticity, preferring a no-makeup look and casual attire. However, circumstances led them to represent the beauty industry. The speaker reflects on this path, acknowledging it was a beneficial turn, especially as a single parent, aligning with their goals of leadership and holistic growth.
• 33:00 - 42:00: Recommended books for entrepreneurs This chapter discusses the author's background, highlighting being raised by a single mother and later having a stepfather. The author identifies as a feminist and finds themselves in an industry predominantly consisting of women, which naturally led to supporting women's empowerment. The chapter also touches upon the issue of poverty within the beauty industry, citing the workforce's potential for growth despite facing some disadvantages.
• 42:00 - 47:00: How to connect with Mickey Lee The speaker discusses their vocational path, expressing a calling to support underrepresented and under-supported females, which drives their entrepreneurial spirit. They emphasize their purpose and sense of being exactly where they are meant to be, despite any preconceived notions about their personality or interests.

Salon Retention Unlocked: Build a Legendary Team Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 all right ladies and gentlemen boys and girls children of all ages listeners of the Brazen and Bold podcast i am so pleased to welcome today to my show the incomparable Mickey Lee she is not only who I would consider now a personal friend of mine i'm so lucky to have her um in my sphere of influence and someone who somebody who I consider um a good
• 00:30 - 01:00 friend a mentor and someone I really look up to nikki Lee is a business coach and consultant who specializes in business systems compensation pricing personal development and establishing leadership team infrastructure she's the principal of Nikki Lee Consultancy which is an education firm centered around employer advocacy organizational structure recruitment marketing modern hiring practices and digital onboarding
• 01:00 - 01:30 systems listen up guys nikki Lee is an absolute badass i'm so grateful that I was able to meet her um just under a year ago um her purpose is really bridging relational work dynamics between managers and employees i'm so excited for what she gets to share with us today and for what we can learn nikki Lee welcome to the show thank you so much i mean could there have been a better intro for crying out loud i just need you to like record that take that out and I'm going to post it everywhere
• 01:30 - 02:00 as like the my my like intro to everything if I could be Nikki Lee's number one hype girl just because that's what I really think of her I would be so um here's something that people who might not know me well or who are barely listening on the show might not know about me but um I always tell the truth so I try to I try to be polite if what I have to say or think is not favorable but if I think something I will surely say it and it is the truth Nikki you are you are a badass what I'm most impressed with as well is like your your love for
• 02:00 - 02:30 psychology and personal development and what I've witnessed in our interactions to be your really really stellar ethics so tell us uh yeah I know absolutely tell us a little bit about um about your work and about your journey as an entrepreneur okay well I'll keep that short because I am my least favorite topic but um I do want to say how amazing I think you are from the first moment I I met you i actually was like that that lady is beyond well spoken and
• 02:30 - 03:00 can present almost anything so what a what an incredible personality you have and incredible spirit you have it's so much fun being your friend i just love it um so h how did I So I was I was one of those kids I'm going to go back into childhood i was one of those kids that I was always planning i was planning like my future i was planning like how I was going to move out how I was going to buy my first car my first job you know how I was going to make money for the summer babysitting like I was that girl so now
• 03:00 - 03:30 I think it just came naturally to me because I was you know I think you're born with certain personality traits where you just want to drive forward and do things so I was always this had this mindset of more overachievement achievement i'm very achievement driven and so that kind of I think led me into the world of entrepreneurship more than anything because I was always wanting to create solutions for things i was I'm very solution oriented everywhere I go I'm always like thinking well can we make this a little bit better just like
• 03:30 - 04:00 you do actually that's kind of why yeah yeah this is resonating right no wonder we like each other so um then I ended up u working in the beauty industry wasn't supposed to be there i was supposed to actually go into psychology i was going to be a psychologist but like most Gen Xers we paid for our own college our parents didn't pay for our college like millennials I think so we we had to kind of you know support our own financial endeavors and it was just very tough you know uh to support college into a
• 04:00 - 04:30 doctorate or a much so So I went to college for you know psychology communication um but I ended up falling into the salon industry and that was really accidental if you want me to be honest because I I really am would be happy to have no makeup wear my hair short with sweatpants that's kind of who I am but here I am living this life of representative of beauty but I it was meant to be because as a single mom um
• 04:30 - 05:00 raised by a single mom i mean she eventually got married i had a stepfather but the point of it is that I am um was I'm a feminist to my core and so being in an industry that's 90% female it became very natural for me to support that and so I just just discovered that poverty was a real issue in the beauty industry um growth potential uh most of the workforce tends to be slightly disadvantaged just because they come
• 05:00 - 05:30 from a bit of a vocational path um not everyone but generally speaking that's the truth so I just was I just was called to it in my spirit to really help and support females who were uh under supported to be more supported and I think that's what's driven this entrepreneurial path for me more than anything else and I was just meant to be there despite my you know tomboyish ways but I I I was meant to be there and and this is why I think I've ended up landing in this exact path that I
• 05:30 - 06:00 thought I was going to be in which is psychology and here I am helping women and business owners not just in the beauty industry really in every industry uh that's that wants to engage with me for it um I'm just a business student you know I love studying business overall so yeah that's kind of how I ended up here all right and you took that you took that path um via the avenue of the beauty industry and hair and that's how we met was collaborating at you know we were both working at an event specifically
• 06:00 - 06:30 designed for the beauty industry however you did mention you know this this background in psychology the psychology of compensation of team um leadership and how to work between management and um and teams so tell me a little bit about the various types of industries that you work in you know I think it's easy for people listening to be like okay well beauty it's it doesn't apply to me tell me what are the industries that what your work is focused on can help so so the folks listening in can know you know who this could apply to
• 06:30 - 07:00 what you're going to share today about about compensation structure and the modern way of doing business well I if if you are a service if you're a business that is an employer right so employment relationship is I think applies across the board from HR employment management leadership infrastructure leadership task management all of those things apply to any business that has people in it and then there's also this other aspect of
• 07:00 - 07:30 HR you know human resource and human resource i love it so much because there is such a a wonderfully straightforward and streamlined approach to people management and and growing people and helping people to become protected in the workplace you know I'm I'm very much an advocate not just for the employer but I am an advocate for the employee as well and I think that in markets of employment markets we shift back and forth we shift from being an employer
• 07:30 - 08:00 market which is kind of how you and I grew up we grew up in the day and age where a job was treated a little differently you know now jobs are treated a little bit like launching pads or temporary situations or maybe they're looking for something more than just you know am I going to get paid that's that's not necessarily what people are looking for anymore and so if your business is service-based meaning you're providing a service to the public and or you are
• 08:00 - 08:30 having HR needs and considerations you have employees or perhaps contractors or people that you are growing in your company that's my lane so my lane doesn't necessarily need to be in business a beauty business necessarily a salon that's definitely my my expertise my specialty because I understand the beauty business inside and out that's your background right but I also understand service-based business more than anything and managing teams and growing teams and all of the things right so for me that's really if your
• 08:30 - 09:00 business applies to that gyms um uh businesses that have contractors uh anything like that that that we have women female owned businesses setting up female owned businesses anything in that vein it's my it's my lane so yeah okay i love that and I think that's actually very helpful and um just because I have had the chance to know you a little bit more personally too and I can speak to you and attest to your your passion for
• 09:00 - 09:30 the underdog for making sure that people are treated with respect compensated fairly that they are empowered and that the best interest of everybody on the team is cared for and nurtured and I think that that's a really important distinction and is this your baby saying hi in the background yes awesome um we welcome all of our furry friends to the podcast it's great hopefully some of them are listening in um but I just think that that advocacy and that
• 09:30 - 10:00 passion is I've I've seen it and I've heard some personal stories about the way you showed up within your own team to support people who are like you said maybe starting off at a disadvantage to climb to a higher plane so I think that your work has really made an impact for a lot of people in that in your own salon space the businesses that you've run but also in how you advocate and how you help educate employers and leaders to do better by their teams tell me what are um what are some of the biggest
• 10:00 - 10:30 shifts um that you've seen in HR as you mentioned from like the way it was when we were we were starting out in our careers maybe 20 30 years ago until now what are the biggest shifts that you've seen in the dynamics with employees and team members and the needs in HR so you know there is um I think there's I'm going to start with hopefully this is not a negative vibe to start with but I think it's important to say out loud i believe that there is this natural mistrust built into the employment
• 10:30 - 11:00 relationship due to maybe unscrupulous business practices from an employer standpoint to an employee from the histories in the past like you know you know from minimum wage when we first started minimum wage in the 1920s uh all the way up to developing all of these laws that protect employees now up to now I think an employee approaches an employment relationship with with a little bit of mistrust that they feel that they have to you know is the owner of the business being fair to me are
• 11:00 - 11:30 they oppressing me are they controlling me are they you know all of these kinds of things that was not as prevalent I think when we were younger in in growing up in our industries uh in the beauty industry when we were when I was 18 19 20 years old i I found that if a if an employer told you to do something you kind of did it you know yeah and and and we didn't argue it we didn't even question it we didn't threaten to leave or quit or anything we might have grumbled about it quietly but we didn't say no to it and we were willing to work
• 11:30 - 12:00 and I think what influenced our generation so there's a lot of uh shifts and the one of the major shifts is that I would say that we are in an employee market versus an employee employer market from back in the 80s and 90s and even the early 2000s what that means is employers are operating at a somewhat of a disadvantage in the marketplace you know just like a re real estate market if you're a seller or a buyer one of those markets is somewhat disadvantaged because of the of the market this is why
• 12:00 - 12:30 employers have to recruit differently we have to compensate differently we have to have different motivators and then on top of everything there's generational gaps so this generational gap distance from a Gen X to a millennial to a Gen Z we were influenced differently the way I was influenced was work as many hours as you can burn and churn and do as much as you could in order to make more money nowadays the younger generation they view that as that's not how I want to do it that's that's that's of interest to
• 12:30 - 13:00 me and I want a new way and it's forcing us as leaders to kind of think our way through how we're managing this younger workforce um and and and and then you add the pandemic and then you add HR shifts from the pandemic and beyond that was already happening you add the gig economy the shifts of the gig economy which is now people in service-based businesses tend to lean more towards self-employment these days and so you have all of these influences and then you add to it technology so then those
• 13:00 - 13:30 are just a few so now all these influences are in my opinion impacting the the marketplace in multiple different ways and so now employers unless you're really savvy to those things and address your people on that level instead of still operating from the mindset of what we were trained and and influenced by we can't lead like that anymore we can't run like that anymore we can't compensate like that anymore you know we can no longer just say we're paying you minimum wage and that's what it's going to be you know we have to be work your way up i paid my
• 13:30 - 14:00 dues right you know and right now to that point about the generational changes that um in no other time in history have so many different generations been in the workforce simultaneously so we have people work people in their late7s working with people all the way down to 17 and 18 years old all within the same organization at this point i know in my team up until recently someone just retired who was 70 and we have people who are also 17 and that's a massive
• 14:00 - 14:30 spread on like you mentioned you touched on what motivates um this demographic of each generation what is their what is their motivator what are what's their work ethic what are the standards that they're used to what kind of leadership works for them we have such a wide swath of that right now that as you mentioned it takes a lot of intelligence in leadership to be able to motivate each cohesion within the team let alone
• 14:30 - 15:00 used to you can try that but what kind of results are you going to have what are you seeing with people who have refused to adapt or who maybe are lacking these modern skills what are you seeing happen to their businesses so so employees more than ever want to align to companies not just for compensation but also for purpose and mission and drive so if they don't feel a sense of fulfillment and happiness in their workplace and again I'm generalizing but overall we are I am
• 15:00 - 15:30 seeing a bigger shift towards employers have to start to see that that they need to help people see the the alignment for them for them to have long-term retention also they have to pay in a way that scales and continues to grow and is driven by performance so so they expect performance but they're not paying to performance they're paying in a rigid or static way you're never going to get
• 15:30 - 16:00 high levels of performance or not never but I don't like to use those kind of words but very rarely are you going to have that happen if you decide to compensate in the traditional models of earn your way up this is what I'm going to pay you without any creativity without any scalability without any performance functionalities built into it you're going to struggle with getting people involved and engaged and then pay is kind of secondary to the alignment piece if a if an employee feels unhappy at work because they feel oppressed or
• 16:00 - 16:30 that they lack career control or that leadership is is toxic or whatever the the language is around these negative feelings or or that conflict resolution isn't handled in a fair manner if any of these things start to come up it doesn't matter what the pain is they're going to figure out another way so it's this really double-edged sword that you have to facilitate inside of your company so not only does it have to feel good be healthy balanced and and and and
• 16:30 - 17:00 positive and in alignment but you also have to pay in a way that's performance-based and scalable so leaders according to you have their work cut out for them is what I'm hearing yeah it's actually much easier than you think it's it's just you have to lean in and you have to really decide you're going to learn it the functionalities are all there it's just we are we have our own personal obstacles you know we believe what we believe because we were taught and influenced in a certain way and then to see it in a different way it's it's it's eye opening to go oh you know as I've
• 17:00 - 17:30 been studying compensation very deeply over the last I would say nine years or so um it's really been eye opening for me to to see the things that you know for example the difference between a fixed pay structure versus a performance pay structure and what that actually does and then what kind of performances do you attach to the pay structure that's performance right so you can attach it to some kind of KPI if you're trying to motivate that KPI and how that
• 17:30 - 18:00 influences the team it's dramatic on what that can do and and I hear salon owners all the time on these Facebook pages and you know on these groups and all these you know times I hear the complaining part of it which I I understand it's frustrating but you're not you're you're not building out structures that create fluidity in that it's very rigid and and so we've got to start to think differently and outside the box especially when it comes to compensation yeah i'm hearing you really lean to what I've heard referred to as growth mindset that leaders need to lean into adapting
• 18:00 - 18:30 and growing and being open to new information and I think the most dangerous people I've ever encountered in my life are people who have all the answers people who already know and people who are set um and the truth is the information that we had in medicine in business in pol in every pretty much every aspect the information that was the best information we had 30 40 50 years ago is wildly different than the best information we have today and if we
• 18:30 - 19:00 are set on um the way you know orthopedic surgery was done in 1980 the most cutting edge process if I am a physician who's still dialed into like that's what I learned and that was the best I mean nobody would go to that surgeon any longer they would be like uh no we want we want somebody who's really on the cutting edge of technology how is it really any different as leaders in any industry if they're not leaning into what is happening new in technology compensation leadership and those kind of things and then something go ahead
• 19:00 - 19:30 that's such an interesting and that's a really really amazing point to make Heather because um because of the advances that we have had in digital technology and the platforms and the apps and the functionalities that we're able to do now that is freed up for us that that does the job for us unless you're learning to do those things and use those things you are limited to whatever your ceiling is at at that moment you've got to raise that ceiling
• 19:30 - 20:00 yeah always i also compare it to like the world is like um being by the walking the moving sidewalks you know if I'm standing still next to a moving sidewalk everybody next to me is going forward i'm actually in effect backwards now if I'm not continually moving forward I'm actually heading the wrong direction and I think that that's the case with everything and then something else you touched on to really to really like lean into this concept of growth mindset it sounds like that's the way to uh the current employee demographic or contractors like they need to see a path
• 20:00 - 20:30 for growth is what I'm hearing as far as compensation being creative being scalable all those things mean I'm not static it's not just about tenure it's about my performance and if I know that my performance will trigger a raise in my income or in my capacity within a business that's a growth opportunity right so um what are the biggest ways that you're seeing leaders implement some of these concepts that are yielding a desired result like maybe just a few of some of your maybe
• 20:30 - 21:00 um people that you've consulted recently or some things that you've seen about in in all your studies what are you seeing as those those best practices or like biggest takeaways well I would say that I've seen very successful owners who lean into this kind of concept get out of the mindset that there is only one right way you know so so for example I do flat rate commission that's one way right that's kind of the old way of doing pay and it's still so prevalent
• 21:00 - 21:30 everybody is still so stuck on this like flat rate commission not knocking flat rate commission flat rate commission is fine for certain things for certain scenarios or certain situations but it is not design it is not um the most advantageous way for when you have somebody that's an overachiever or an outperformer and so when you are developing methods that are unique and more personalized it's kind of like it's it's it's what direction do you want to
• 21:30 - 22:00 face right so it's it's do you want to face the direction where you are going to personalize and customize structures for your people because as a leader you want to serve their needs or do you want it to be the other way where you know back in the traditional methodology of leadership it was stick to your vision if your vision is this then stick to your vision and everyone has to acclimate to it or they're off the off the train right and so that is changing no longer do you have to be of the
• 22:00 - 22:30 mindset that you just say "Nope this is my vision and this is the way I do it and this is the way it's going to be done whether you like it or not." And it doesn't matter what you need right it's it's allowing for customizations and personalizations to happen it's allowing for personal growth paths to happen so get customized with it start to recognize who is you know developing bigger contribution within your company whoever those people are leverage them
• 22:30 - 23:00 get them involved in different ways especially through compensation is a powerful tool to engage somebody who's contributing at a much higher level it's not the only tool but it's definitely one of the best tools right and like a lot of people are aware of PRO's principle which is 80% uh or 20% of your effort right produces 80% of your outcome or another way would be 20% of your team gives you 80% of your results etc etc um so looking at maybe that 20% of the top performers or or
• 23:00 - 23:30 those who are in the highest alignment or moving the goals forward of the business the mission and the vision those people should have an extra incentive or an extra compensation around that right what kind of things are you seeing whether like would it be bonuses would it be ownership stake or what kind of things are you seeing that are creative ways that are um really speaking to the modern market and the current employee so many things there so so for example one thing would be in the
• 23:30 - 24:00 past we would have one commission structure right in a salon or in a business with a service-based team instead of having one now really looking at having five six seven commission structures in a business is much more advantageous for a business owner to do doing the work to build them out already with performance-based commission structures like instead of flat rigid uh commission pay structures instead freeing it up with creating something
• 24:00 - 24:30 called progressive commission structure progressive commission structure or slide incremental allows the commission uh percentage to float up and down depending on production let's say or whatever volume sale whatever you want to measure that's an example of one way that you are you could you could adapt a more personalized approach where you can show your team member that yeah you might start at this pay plan but then if you do this you're going to hit this pay plan and you're going to be promoted so never underestimate the power of giving a promotion to the team that's one of the biggest leadership powers you could
• 24:30 - 25:00 hold in your hand as a leader meaning you give them the ability to say I will promote you if you do this that is like a really powerful tool another thing would be for example bonuses bonus structures so there's signing bonuses there's retention bonuses there's training bonuses and by the way training bonuses are an enormous benefit to training programs which for a salon as you're training skill or any business that trains skill you know one of the big problems that people have when
• 25:00 - 25:30 they're training skill is well what if I train them and they leave right so that's one of the things that you can be afraid of well retention or training bonuses really offset this challenge so utilizing this kind of methodology is very helpful to implement for those issues so these are like things that you can do to help solve some of those problems another thing would have what we call a new hire strategy a new hire strategy means that you would have multiple entry points for an hourly rate because most employees that come into a business a service-based business is
• 25:30 - 26:00 going to have to be provided an hourly rate in the beginning until they can prove themselves that they can produce so the hourly rate should be different depending on what that candidate is bringing to the table so if they're bringing a book of business more skill more experience a higher ability to contribute then they should start at a higher hourly rate but how do you assess that so then you have to build a system of how do you assess that which is again sounds hard but it's very easy to do so these are just some of the ideas around creating more creative compensation
• 26:00 - 26:30 structures that help the business owner have powerful tools that really resolve a lot of challenges along the way inside of what they're doing inside of the company yeah thank you i think that those specifics are are really really helpful when I think about people who are looking to attract or retain retain top talent in whatever their service- based industry is um sometimes it's like everybody has to start at ground zero well if someone's coming um for example like with my skill set if I look to relocate or if I'm doing something different I would never consider going
• 26:30 - 27:00 into a new a new space as a new person in that market and think that I would start at the beginning not because I'm too good for it but because it really would be an assume doesn't even make sense right and so so thinking about that like in a recruiting way and then how how to give somebody an opportunity to prove themselves and scale what you're offering to them as a result um I remember talking to you briefly and if I we can strike this from the record if this is secret sauce but you know we're talking about uh trying to attract
• 27:00 - 27:30 somebody with an established clientele or book of business in in my my business and if we as we talked to you about that briefly you said "Hey like one of the things you can do instead of saying "Oh if you've had X amount of years of experience we'll give you a signing bonus." Well maybe instead say you get paid X dollar amount per person from your book of business that shows up into our space that's right and that was just like oh what an aha so there's really no cap there's no
• 27:30 - 28:00 max or threshold to what that person could bring in to their own business so to me that that's like blue sky and that really speaks to a lot of people right now they want to know I want to know I can always keep growing why would I be here why wouldn't I go out on my own right and have unlimited potential if you're going to put a cap on my commission on my bonuses etc so I remember you recommending making it tied to that metric specifically like each person that you bring into our space you will get paid x amount for and I loved that i thought that was like a very like
• 28:00 - 28:30 huh that was pretty straightforward and and something just kind of simple rather than hey you you look like you have 10 years of experience here's $5,000 for just saying so right and I I personally um as as a newer business owner a few years ago made the mistake of having somebody who had an incredible resume 20 years of experience had already owned their own business but was relocating like all these things that made them look like they were a prime recruit only to find out that their skill set however they were able to build their business in their other market and I will leave
• 28:30 - 29:00 this very very top level i don't want to insult this person's um interpretation of good work but I remember realizing what they said they were capable of and what their actual results were there was a massive disconnection they did have the 20 plus years of experience they did have all these things on their resume their skill just their skill I would have matched at an entry level versus someone with 20 years of experience and I compensated them so disproportionately solely based on their their actual port you know not their portfolio excuse me their their resume
• 29:00 - 29:30 and their work history and it was imbalanced it was really hard to backpedal from to be honest with you so I think it's almost right right and I so I think that what you're saying is is really really brilliant and so helpful um I want to address that a little bit uh because this is kind of important to say you know here here's the thing about every salon owner or every business owner that needs a service provider wants top talent everybody wants top talent with with clientele that's that's nobody wants a junior level with no
• 29:30 - 30:00 clients okay i don't want a brand new personal trainer who doesn't know anything and doesn't have anybody personally yeah exactly even though it's important to have a growth path for those folks it is not the same as bringing on a top talent it is in the onboarding and that's why onboarding is so important it's in the onboarding if you onboard someone that is junior level without a client needs skill training etc it needs to be assessed in a certain way and then that path needs to be already determined somebody who is a top
• 30:00 - 30:30 level talent coach let's say coming on board with a coaching team is not going to come on board and go through the recruit's path it's insulting it's disrespectful to their what they've earned and what they've done in their life it's disrespectful it's a waste of time actually more than anything like like why would you waste their production time and yours on something like that right it's not creative right but I do know why owners are doing that because for exactly what you said
• 30:30 - 31:00 they've gotten themselves into hot water before because of the you know the misrepresentation not not in a negative line way but just in a everybody presents themselves in a more positive light when they're looking for a job everybody does but there needs to be a better assessment of what that is before the pay is promised and so you can certainly have you know a retention bonus that's promised at the end or you could have some sort of pay that after a 30 or a 90-day assessment or something like that i think anyone could agree to
• 31:00 - 31:30 that that that's fair so so again I wanted to say that out loud because in in in retrospect of that kind of situation I would not steer an owner to say "Forget it i'm never going to hire anybody's top talent anymore." That's not for you to say "I'm going to shut that off." It's just it's a it's a it's a it's a call of action for you to say "Okay we need to design the onboarding path for a top talent person and what that needs to look like." That's all essentially going into being more creative right and having a more
• 31:30 - 32:00 customized option for those things i think that's really helpful that um that you pointed out that that uh distinction um you also referenced growing people and how important that is in the modern climate as a leader can you speak a little bit about what it looks like to grow people or what you're seeing new hires and new talent looking for in any type of industry where they're in a service-based industry like what what is the demand or what is like what's the big dangling carrot for people to want
• 32:00 - 32:30 to work with um with with a business right now in growth so so I'm going to start with brand reputation i'm going to start there because I think it's important to kind of address the elephant in the room which is that business owners who are hiring for service providers have to create a guest experience they have to create a customer experience so that experience has to be more than just the service itself it has to be some other elements anyone who's in sales knows that anyone who's a service provider knows that but
• 32:30 - 33:00 but when you you have a business that has a very top level owner that has built an entire business based on their own skill set it's you know it's art form right so when we're doing a service provider it's kind of delivering art to somebody in that guest experience and so when we're doing that the way we perceive art or the way we perceive quality is may be not completely aligned with somebody else's version of that so I would say that it's very challenging
• 33:00 - 33:30 to have somebody who comes on board as a trainee or needing to develop new skill or to to go through this process of growing somebody you have to actually identify the skills that you're growing so so doing interview processes with really detailed skill assessment in the categories and I think that there's really three core categories to a successful service provider in any industry really and that's one is technical skill so the technical skill
• 33:30 - 34:00 is what I mean by the monetizable skill it's the skill that people are converting to dollars so when they're doing the service what somebody's buying into like do my hair for this dollar amount do my personal training for this dollar amount whatever that business is and so that is one category in that alone there needs to be a robust curriculum and a and a process to grow somebody in that you have to identify what needs to be trained fill in the gaps don't waste time on the stuff that doesn't need to be trained and get them trained as quickly as possible so that
• 34:00 - 34:30 they can produce at a higher level and there's time to that which means that you have to be willing to invest the dollars so you got to just get over it and have enough funding one of the things that I tell salon owners in their opening a new business or other business owners that are opening a new business is I just I just actually was coaching a person that is starting a school for adult um mental mentally handicapped adults and her starting a school for that so I'm coaching him through launching his business he hasn't opened it yet but he one of the questions I
• 34:30 - 35:00 asked him is "Do you have enough funding to support?" Because he says "I want top talent teachers." Like if you want top talent teachers have you budgeted in your financial plan for the training that it's going to take and the cost of that to sustain those things and have you got have you put that into the budget for the funding and he was like "No." I'm like "Well start there." A lot of these owners um operate at a deficit right from the get-go you know they they start with minimal funding and then they're worried about how do they hire people but yet they got to fill chairs
• 35:00 - 35:30 but they don't have the compensation dollars to do it so start there that's where you really need it uh not fancy chairs or fancy whatever right and then there's the other skill category which is business skill the business skill that you need to train is like consultations or selling or retailing or whatever those business skills are in your business that is a different set of skills those skills magnify volume and sales volume they they add more to it they leverage your monetizable skills to advance more and enhance and make it
• 35:30 - 36:00 much more efficient and make much more productive then you have personal skills which is third category which is always the hard one right because it's the soft skills are the ones that people are like uh that's whole set separate set of training that you got to do because it's such a misnomer to call it soft skills like this is an added bonus this is icing on the cake it's like the hard skill yeah yeah i got to tell you something right now like those soft skills are the ones that I think are like you can have the best technical
• 36:00 - 36:30 skills and the best business skills and if your bedside manner or soft skills are crap guess what you have no business frankly I I was I always joke like listen okay so may or may not actually be good at what I do but like I tell people when I teach about consultation connection and communication which is my forte i explain to people like and that's the soft skills um and I tell them I probably just do mediocre work i'm probably just okay there's like everybody in this room I'm teaching you right now i bet 50% of you are better
• 36:30 - 37:00 than I am at almost any given skill set but the soft skills once you dial that in once you know how to really get that per interpersonal dynamic going like you could suck at pretty much everything you do but you'd have a loyal following until the day you die and then you'd have a million people at your funeral right that's right that's right okay okay listen I can tell you without a doubt that how you grow a loyal raving fan base of clientele in any industry in any business as a service provider especially is you have to win their
• 37:00 - 37:30 hearts and you have to earn their trust and how you do that is through those soft skills or through those those personal skills i call them personal skills but you know it's it's in the ability to build the relationship it's in the ability to earn their trust to communicate in a way that leads the guest and leads the guest experience if you can do that it's all the magic sauce you need the technical skills can come post now listen you need to work on the technical skills sure so all of them have to equally be as strong for you to
• 37:30 - 38:00 make that magic perfect storm happen for that top producer top producers have mastered those three levels in my opinion so how do you grow people you get really concise with each one of those categories and you make sure that you discover and identify the deficit in the individual in those skill categories and you fill in the gaps as quickly as possible with respect to what they you know to for them to understand that they are in control um and
• 38:00 - 38:30 collaboration and to make sure that they understand that you want to collaborate with them that you're not oppressing them or forcing and controlling them you know that the new way of training doesn't involve a lot of that it's the you know it's the Steven M cubby uh wrote this book called Trust and Inspire it's one of the best leadership books I've ever written I've ever read i wish I wrote it um but but you probably could at this point it's a shift it's a shift from he he calls it command and control style of leadership to trust and inspire
• 38:30 - 39:00 it is the same for guest experiences it is the same so that's that's the shift that I would like suggest everyone lean into a bit more okay i love that this this one's so complete um honestly what you just did was teed me up for the question I was about to ask and you already answered it so please say again the name of this book that you really love this this number book by Steven Arvy is that right yeah steven M recovery steven M r cvy who is the son of the man that wrote Stephen MVY that
• 39:00 - 39:30 wrote seven habits of highly effective people okay okay and he wrote a book called Trust and Inspire and it is by far one of the best leadership uh books I've ever ever ever read so every leader should read it i I love that and I'm so appreciative of that my um Are there any other books off the top of your head like the one that you would say "Hey hey there new business owner." Or "Hey budding entrepreneur uh I see you and this like here's the bundle." Let's pretend okay we're going to we're going to ask this a different way nikki Lee 20
• 39:30 - 40:00 years ago when she's starting her entrepreneurial journey was able to talk to Nikki Lee now what what would you tell her like I want you to read these three books or what would you what would you say as a current mentor to your younger self in starting on your entrepreneur journey um at this point yeah so I'm going to say right off the top my favorite book of all time is written by Echerttoi e C K H A R T his last name is T O L L E he is uh a spiritual teacher but I don't
• 40:00 - 40:30 mean to lean into spiritual he teaches in a way that is all-encompassing it's and it and it it develops you as a human being so that you can connect to other human beings whether you're a leader or not my favorite book that he wrote is called A New Earth and that is available on YouTube by the way for free he reads it to you for free the entire Wow so I have
• 40:30 - 41:00 read it eight times i've read it p like in a book taken notes and I've listened to it a total of eight times and every time he says in the beginning of the book you will only your brain and your spirit will only be able to absorb what it's ready to absorb right now the more he goes he goes the thing about learning and enlightenment and understanding is that you cannot go in reverse that's the thing about it so the more you do the more you pro progress you make the more
• 41:00 - 41:30 your brain and your spirit and your heart is able to receive so your capacity keeps expanding so so so just do that and so just listen to it in the beginning you can just listen to him read it to you in the car going to work wherever do it tonight ASAP it's the best thing ever i'm going to I've never heard of this book i've heard of his work but I've never heard of his book so thank you i'm sure I'm not the only one whose mind you'll blow okay so so really what he teaches you is to understand the human dynamic of where someone could be
• 41:30 - 42:00 really coming from so that you have this deep level of empathy so not to be taken advantage of or walked on but to understand another person and maybe where they could be coming from but he speaks to so many things so really it's one of the best people books I've ever I've ever read um the other book that I would tell you that you should read is uh it's called emotional alchemy it's uh written by uh the wife of the man her name is Tara Good uh Goldman and it's uh
• 42:00 - 42:30 really he her husband wrote emotional intelligence one you know 2.0 and all of them uh Daniel Goldman and so they are just so wise I can't even imagine what their dinner time conversations are about um but she Emotional Alchemy was a really uh life-changing book for me i read it in my 20s actually i didn't understand half of it uh but but really I'm I read that book about three times i've understood it more each time that's
• 42:30 - 43:00 a really fascinating book it's a harder read because it has a lot of psycho psychological terminology in it but it helps you understand how the brain functions through emotional reactiveness and um learning how to use logic and decipher a lot of these kinds of things and so as we become wiser more logical more powerful leaders um you know it talks a lot about vibrations and things like this even though I'm kind of like technical tactical technical technical I
• 43:00 - 43:30 have this very deep side to me where I really enjoy understanding human dynamics a little bit more it will help you become a better leader overall so those are the probably the three that I would tell you i absolutely love and value this um I think what you what you touched on is really a holistic approach to leadership like as you're saying it's not like I'm not trying to lean into the spiritual just this happens to help you know how to connect with people better and every everything you were saying I just kept hearing the word like it's holistic it addresses the whole person
• 43:30 - 44:00 and what the modern economy as leaders and as people who are looking to attract and retain clients um or or also top talent what is asking of us is to look at a way to nurture in a holistic way the growth the potential and the education and really you know taking from the very beginning of our conversation today the the overall well-being of the people that we get to lead through their career paths as long as they're with us and I can't imagine
• 44:00 - 44:30 encountering a leader like you and not wanting to stay my whole career path with someone like you so I think if if the people listening today whether they're a soloreneur or someone who is self-employed as an entrepreneur with no one working under them those people can use all of these skills you're talking about because the influence they have is over their clientele or their guest experience and then those who are looking to build teams could use everything you're saying as well um I just think what you shared today is so beautiful and um of course as always um
• 44:30 - 45:00 you just you blow my mind i'm so grateful for every little bit I get to learn from you yeah um tell us if if someone wants to work with you how does that look how can they find you we will include everything in the show notes links i'll even list I'm going to list these books and the authors and so forth but tell me if someone wants to engage you and work with you what are the different options or ways they can do so before we wrap up well so as I've aged and matured and developed more wisdom in my in my work um I have become equally
• 45:00 - 45:30 as selective with working with certain clients so I like to make sure it's a good fit first and I am open to always recommending someone that I know is a good friend and know their style of work so only really who who really should be in in working with me is is what what I'm always looking for um it's as easy as going to nikkileleconultancy.com you can just it's if you look up n I k i l e consultancy that ends with a
• 45:30 - 46:00 y.com i mean I'll share the links with you you just go there and you can book a discovery call and we can just sit and get to know one another and spend you know either 30 minutes or an hour whatever your choice is and we just make sure that we understand each other and if if we're a good fit um and I'll do as many of those as we really need just to make sure it's a good fit before before I jump into anything because really I only want to do great work with people and to create great results and so anyway that's how you can probably do it you can follow me on Instagram at Nikki
• 46:00 - 46:30 Lee Consultancy um I'm on uh Facebook as Nikki Lee or Nikki Lee Trobridge actually but I'm about to drop that um and or you can uh just see us at the beauty leadership lab where we actually have you're going to be there we have put together a two-day live event focused on HR performance evaluations how to goal set how to build a performance assessment system emotional leader emotional intelligence and leadership communication handling tough situations conflict resolution all of
• 46:30 - 47:00 the things in two days and a really beautiful thing I'm partnering with Bonnie Bonado and Bridget Soas uh for that you'll be up there too a little bit so we can share a lot of stuff so I think the networking is going to be amazing it's going to be May 17th and 18th if you want more information of course I'll give you the the link you just check it out we have the whole curriculum up online so you could just uh talk about that too and those this 2025 um right now as we're recording this for those who are listening to this after that event already takes place will you be doing more of these events in the future you holding them quarterly
• 47:00 - 47:30 or um a few times a year how's that going to look so our goal is to do the beauty leadership lab uh at least twice a year is our objective it might end up being only once a year but I do other events too and I work hair shows beauty shows women's business conferences so I do a lot of things if you just follow me on Instagram um or just get on my email list I'm always sharing where I'm at i don't spam anybody i just share like where I'm at next so in case you want to connect wonderful well thank you so much
• 47:30 - 48:00 anybody who has the privilege of spending any time learning from you or connecting with you will absolutely be blessed by that thank you so much for your time and for everything you've shared with us today all right i adore you adore you too thank you