Education and training in salons was a topic tackled by eight industry experts in the inaugural Professional Beauty Industry Roundtable.
DMK’s Daniel Dickson, HÜD Skin + Body’s Gry Tømte, Professional Beauty Solutions’ Matt Williams, Angel Touch Skin Boutique’s Rebecca Daniel, Dermalogica’s Suzette Cassie, The Paddington Beauty Room’s Anna Field, Derma Aesthetics’ Reika Roberts and Skinside Out’s Robyn McAlpine all agreed education was paramount to the success and longevity of the beauty industry.
They shared their top training insights and methods that best support their salons.
Read their edited responses below or watch the video for the full discussion.
1. Reika – Use webinars.
“There is still a great importance on face-to-face training and education, but clinic hours are so vitally important, which is why training via webinars is great. Some clinics are also in the middle of the country so they can’t get to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne or Perth. How we deliver messages to those clinics is critical.”
2. Daniel – Don’t skimp on education.
“Education’s one of those things you can’t skimp on. We’ve shifted our spending from advertising to online education. The challenge with our industry is we don’t have a governing body or a bar that says ‘If you don’t do this, you’re out,’ like accountants and lawyers etc. We’ve pumped about $1.2 million dollars in the last three years into online platforms. We’ve made it their own governing body; there’s education points they’ve got to achieve. We’re big on convenience-based learning. When you can create a pathway professionally for people, they want to be part of that. They’re on the bus, they’re going in that direction.”
3. Anna – Engage your staff.
“It’s my job as a salon owner to get my staff engaged, and implement what they learned, and create change with it. My staff members are asked to fill out a form regarding their expectation of what they’re about to learn and what questions they already have, so they are prepared to ask questions at the end. They have to tell me what they’ve learned, and how they are going to implement it into their role. So there’s an expectation. They’re not just sitting there absorbing it saying ‘Yes, I attended’. As a salon owner, I have to justify why I’m sending you.”
4. Robyn – Distributors must be educators.
“A lot of companies now are training about skin, and how these ingredients are having a cellular interaction. That really helps when it comes to implementing it when you get back into your salon. It’s not just doing the benefits of the product and selling it to the client. It’s how that’s working to create changes. For a distributor it’s become a big responsibility now in picking up the education.”
5. Gry – Personal growth is fundamental.
“One thing I really love about what DMK has done is implementing more of a personal growth-type education, which is so often overlooked. There’s been a lot of emphasis on positivity, and how to change your mindset. And I’ve noticed that the girls when they come back (from training) they’re really pumped. And they get in there, and they smash it! They’re on the bus.”
6. Suzette – Make education relevant.
“We started as an education company before the product line was introduced. Education has always been our focus. We’re doing some live streaming now, so somebody who is in a remote place can ask questions. We’re doing some more storytelling around education, so instead of being lectured and just ticking off that class, we relate it back to a story. We teach on a topic like menopausal skin, or sun damage. It’s not just about this is a product, and this is the ingredient, and this is what it’ll do. It’s keeping people engaged.”
7. Matt – Work on yourself.
“My very first business mentor said: ‘Work harder on yourself than you do on your business’. We have an annual event, Passion to Profits, where we bring in all of our suppliers, and it’s about education. But equal to the education, it’s about inspiration. We’re having huge success with Facebook live every fortnight; it’s great because there’s interaction.”
8. Rebecca – Involve staff.
“I take my staff to Passion to Profits because they get to see a little bit of the business side as well. That’s really important to me, because sometimes they come to work, and they get paid and they go home. But when they see things broken down, they actually stop and think about it.”