going solo with jennie wolff of sola salon studios

Looking for more control of your salon environment? Want to focus more attention on serving your clients? Renting a salon suite has become an attractive business opportunity for many beauty pros in different stages of their careers. Our guest Jennie Wolff of Sola Salon Studios describes what makes suite owners successful and how they experience community despite working alone.

Show Notes

Resources:

Sola Salon Studios

Jennie Wolff on Instagram

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

ASHLEY: Welcome to Outgrowth: A Slice of Pro Beauty with your hosts Ashley Gregory Hackett. 

JAIME: And Jaime Schrabeck. The availability of individual salon suites gives beauty pros another workplace option, but how do you know if, and when, it’s the right fit for your business?

ASHLEY: We welcome our guest, Jennie Wolff, chief marketing officer of Sola Salon Studios, and host of Sola Stories podcast to discuss the opportunities and challenges of working solo. Let’s grow together.    

JENNIE: Thank you so much for having me. 

JAIME: If you would, for our audience, please share some background about yourself and how you became involved in the beauty industry.

JENNIE: Yes. Well, it’s always an interesting journey to think back, you know, to, to the beginning when I thought, where am I going to end up? And if you would have told me beauty, I don’t think that I really even knew what a robust and amazing industry this was. I got my start in very early on in the music industry. When I was in college, I was writing for music magazines and doing PR on the music side. And I moved out to Denver, Colorado, and I got into sports and entertainment, and I was running the special events department for Kroenke Sports, and I was doing that for many years before I decided to make a total career change and go see if I could get my start in marketing. So I joined an experiential marketing agency and I was working at this agency for a couple of years when I just, I knew I really wanted to be in-house with one company. And I was introduced to the founders of Sola Salon Studios. And I was actually a customer of an esthetician who owned her own studio at Sola. And I had been with her throughout her journey of moving from her traditional salon into Sola. And it was so fun, going to spend time in the salon. I used to joke with them that they were my first friends in Denver. And so when I found out that Sola was a franchise company, in that they were getting ready, you know, positioning themselves for growth, I had so many questions. How are you marketing? How are you building community? Everything when you’re in an experiential marketing agency comes back to the people and what kind of experience you’re providing to them. And I had so many questions for the founders of Sola and they just, they were like, I think we might need to have you come join our team. So I ended up, I was the first person to come in-house at Sola to do marketing. And now I just passed my eight year anniversary with Sola. And so now I have a little bit of time under my belt in the beauty industry, but I just remember I was so green in the industry. And I was connected with so many wonderful people when I first joined Sola and now eight years later, we’re coming up on 600 locations. We have 17,000 hairdressers and beauty professionals, and we’ve just been able to cultivate this really magical community there.

ASHLEY: Well, congratulations on all of your success. It’s very interesting to see, I’m sure, even from inside the evolution of Sola Salon Studios for the past eight years, when it was really basically starting and over the last eight years. I’d love if you could share your experience and what you’ve seen in the industry, what the primary reasons are that owners cite for going solo over looking for a space inside of a full service salon.

JENNIE: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I celebrate the whole industry and I think that there will always be a place for, you know, the, the bigger traditional salons. There’s always the people that fit better in that kind of environment. When we see people moving into the studio environment, you know, it really comes down to freedom and control. We have a lot of people in our community who they are hairdressers, but they’re also educators, or writers, or I just interviewed somebody on our podcast the other day, who’s a writer, and a figure skater, and a photographer, and, you know, she also owns her own studio at Sola, and so having the freedom to be able to do all of these things in and out of the salon. We have a lot of working parents, so people who want to make sure that they can control their own schedule, whether they want to work seven days a week or work three days a week, they have that choice within their studio. People who want to have that one-on-one environment. And we’re seeing that, there’s been a lot of change, especially throughout the last year with the COVID-19 pandemic, where a lot of people are looking for a more intimate environment, a space where they can be one-on-one with their guests. And we hear that a lot too, that, you know, not just because of the safety and control of your studio space, but also that creating that safe space for your guests to come in, feel like you really control the space. And then also they can feel free to ask any questions that they might not be as comfortable talking about in a larger footprint salon, to create a really intimate environment. So there’s a lot of reasons. You know I would say everyone’s motivated by something different. It’s not all about, I’m moving to Sola so I can make more money, although plenty of people certainly do. We definitely see that everyone’s motivated by something different. 

JAIME: Jennie, what’s the reason that salon owners feel that they have more control in a space like a suite? Is it that they’re working alone or do we have situations in a suite where people are working with others and maybe it’s just two or three people?

JENNIE: Oh, yes, we definitely have people who are operating what operates more like a traditional salon in Sola. I’m, I’m thinking of one salon in Las Vegas, Radically Curly. They have a huge footprint. They’ve knocked down walls. They have several stylists working in that space. But the majority of our, our community is working in, you know, a single-chair studio. Of course we do also have a lot of doubles, but the largest percentage is working in a one-on-one space. So it’s control over everything. You know, they can set their own hours. They have 24/7 access to their studio. So we have stylists who service celebrities or news anchors and, you know, they need to be able to get into their space at odd, random hours. We have people that only want to work certain days a week. So controlling schedule, I think, is a big thing of control, Having the choice of what services you offer. So we have a lot of people that said, you know, oh, when I was an employee at such and such salon, before I moved to Sola, I was spending a lot of my time doing services that didn’t really bring me joy. And so in their studio, they can choose the specific services that they want to do. They have choice of their retail and backbar so they can, if they’re an educator, they can use the lines that they represent or if they’re not, they have that choice, whether they want to have one brand that they’re carrying or multiple. So they have that choice and then they keep all those retail profits as well. Control over the whole environment, whether they want to work in silence, or play music, or have a TV. You know, you see a lot of barbers that will have sports going in their studios. So they can really control that client environment as well, and, you know, especially for our educators who leave, and hit the road, and go teach classes, and then come back. They just like that control of their space and knowing that no one’s going to be in their space touching their things, using their products or any of their tools while they’re gone. So, you know, the control spans, I think, for a lot of different areas of their life. And then we really say that it’s, it’s all about the freedom to live the life you love. So it’s that opportunity of what you can do outside of the salon, too. So, working moms who never have to miss a game, or can check out when they need to go be with their kids at a school event, or something like that is definitely a big part of that control as well. 

ASHLEY: I think it’s so important to have control over our schedule and have that work-life balance that we’re all striving for. Speaking of control, we are seeing more and more newly licensed professionals enter the industry solo. I’d love to know how Sola supports the transition of new beauty professionals into the industry while they’re actually building a clientele at the same time.

JENNIE: Absolutely. Well, you know, at Sola, we’re always innovating and creating programs that really help to solve the problems of our community members. So for instance, years ago, we saw that there was not one single app business management platform that was really created for the independent. There were a lot of tools out there, a lot of apps and programs out there, but nothing that had really been created with the voice of the independent. So we did focus groups and surveys with our community. We found out what do you need a salon management platform to do? How can we help you with your online booking, with your analytics, with your KPIs? And we were able to partner with Gloss Genius to build Sola Genius which really speaks to the independent. So we’re always looking at what kind of tools solve problems. You know, for people who are coming right out of beauty school, some of them are building a book of business already using social media. You know, we provide a lot of education. So at Sola, we have a blog every week; we put out a new blog, we have our, our Sola Stories podcast, and we’re always sharing tips and tricks. Everybody that comes into Sola, when they start, they get a startup manual that takes you through everything from how to register your business, how to get set up for tax purposes, how to get started with marketing. On the Sola website, we give every single person their own web page which they can manage through our exclusive app. Our app is called the Sola Pro app. So they can actually go on and very simply create their own website so that right away they’re showing up in search. They have a place to drive people. So we see people who really come in a lot of, especially newer Sola pros who are joining our community, adopting the full suite of tools that we have. They have a really integrated approach to getting started. So, you know, we’re always talking to our community. We have our Faces of Sola, which is our ambassador program. Our Faces of Sola ended up being mentors to the community. So they share a lot of education through the blog and the podcast. A lot of them are just available through Instagram direct messaging. They connect with new stylists very frequently to help people really get over that fear. But, you know, we do see that not everybody is suited to go straight from beauty school into a studio. You know, we’re seeing more and more of that now with and I remember that, Gordon Miller put out an article once where he called it the gig economy, where you see a lot of people who are finding ways to work for themselves. And so it’s not just a result of salon studios. It’s a result of the whole way that the world works right now where people have a lot of different ways and opportunities to work for themselves. And so you’re seeing more and more of a desire to do that. But like I said earlier, we do not discriminate against any kind of salon, and traditional salons absolutely have wonderful place in the industry and should always be growing as well. And we see a lot of people that come to Sola as a stepping stone in their career as well. You know, they come to Sola to build their book, build their business. And then they graduate to a larger footprint salon as well and we celebrate that. So, you know, I think it’s a cycle where whether you’re new out of beauty school, if you go work in a salon and work your way up to a studio, or maybe you’re working in a studio because you’re working your way up to your 10-chair salon, there’s different people, different chapters of their lives that it works best. And we also see people who come from owning a 10-chair salon that want to then move into a studio so that they can focus on their art and for whatever next chapter they’re moving into.

JAIME: We know that the freedom of salon ownership comes with lots of responsibilities and as individuals are seeking different ways to make their living in our industry, we know that not all of those ways are necessarily compliant. What does Sola do to inform its owners about compliance when it comes to health and safety regulations, or even just scope of practice and things like that are more specific to the particular state in which they’re located?

JENNIE: Yes, Sola Salon Studios is a franchise. So we have a franchise owners in all different cities and states all over the country, and what makes that a really great situation is that each of those franchisees is very attuned to what their city, and county, and state requires in terms of taxes, and licensing, and all that. So that’s part of the startup manual process is getting our beauty professionals set up in the right way so that they understand what’s required of them in their local market. Throughout 2020, obviously, a lot changed with health and safety and sanitation and the, the laws and the restrictions were different everywhere. And so our local franchisees were joining all kinds of webinars and community forums, and making sure that they really understood what was required of them in their local markets. And so we had just tons of education. We put together a COVID-19 resource website where our community, and we opened it up to anybody in the beauty industry, could go to learn more about, whether it was templates on how to communicate or what they needed to do to keep their studio safe. We launched a line of PPE products on our Sola store so people could have access to disposable masks when they were in major shortage, where they could get laundry bags, and, uh, reusable masks, and all sorts of things that would help them in their studios. We worked with Barbicide to host webinars and Barbicide certifications and we actually created a guide for sanitation specifically for studios and suites. And we created that at Sola, but we shared it with all other salon suite companies because we felt like as an industry, it was really a time for us to all band together. And we didn’t want to have any resources that we weren’t then sharing with everyone else in the industry.

ASHLEY: So this might be a pretty niche question, but I want to kind of get into the nitty gritty with you about it. We’re seeing, of course, throughout the history of the salon industry, the rampant misclassification of artists in salons as independent contractors, as opposed to being W2 employees. Have you received any feedback from current suite owners that they’re trying to escape that cycle and that’s why they went off on their own or what’s the conversation happening around labor, misclassification, and how it relates to coming to studios or maintaining their suite ownership? 

JENNIE: Sure. Yeah. Well, you know, we don’t have any W2 employees that are working in studios at Sola. So all of them are, they have their own license and they’re doing business under their own business name. So we really don’t have any conflict there cause we, you know, we’re not employing them. So they are all self-employed. And I, I know that there was a lot of that conversation going on in the industry, but we do our best to make sure that our stylists are fully supported, that they can use the Sola Genius app to track all of their business expenses, and do everything legally in the right way, and pay taxes on time, and all of that good stuff. And we just had a Sola sessions event and we have the Tax Duchess as part of the event there to educate people. So, you know, we do our best to support them on what it means to be an independent business owner and we typically don’t run into a lot of conflict on our end with the W2 misclassifications. 

JAIME: Jennie, could you give us some idea of the ratio of the different types of licensees that Sola typically rents to in terms of hair professionals, skincare professionals, and nail professionals?

JENNIE: Yeah, absolutely. We have a very diverse community at Sola, you know, all ages, all backgrounds, all cultures, all shapes and sizes, and all kinds of services, obviously, that they offer in their studios. We have about 85% of our community does hair. So that would be all of our hairdressers, colorists, barbers, that’s who indicates that they do hair in their studio. And then the rest of the 15%, you know, we have nail techs. We have estheticians, massage therapists. We’ve seen all kinds of also very niche services as well: teeth whitening, spray tanning, med spa. So we have a lot of that going on as well in our studios. But I would say hair and estheticians are definitely the biggest percentage, and nail techs comes after that. Not all of our locations do allow nail techs and that’s not a Sola rule. It’s, it’s whether that shopping center or whatever the landlord of the space will allow for nail techs in the space. But if you walk into any given Sola, you’ll see a huge mix of services.

JAIME: In terms of that mix, Jennie, then do you have renters that are offering services not covered by the state’s board of barbering and cosmetology?

JENNIE: Yes, there are some services that will fall outside of that. And it really depends on what the specific Sola owner has worked out with whoever is in space. I mean, we are a beauty business and most of the services in our Sola Salon Studios locations are beauty-based businesses. Every once in a while, I’ll see something like a personal trainer, and it’s all really interesting. And it’s really something where the franchise owner has made that decision with their community, that it would be a great benefit to have. I think that the more diverse the locations are, the better, the better we can collectively serve the consumers. You know, that’s what we want to make sure Sola is attracting consumers for our independent salon owners as well. So I guess this piggybacks off of your question earlier on how we help. We have a booking engine on our website called Book Now, and you can book an appointment with anybody that is using Sola Genius for booking. So that is integrated on our website. So we do drive a ton of consumer traffic as well and drive a lot of business to our studios that way. So I, I think that when there’s a business that’s a creative to the hairdressers, and it helps bring them in foot traffic, and it’s something that they are happy to have in the space, we have been a little bit more flexible. But definitely, you see a wide range and especially with the delicensing of certain services, even in the hair space. So I know that there was a lot of conversation happening over braiding, if braiding was something that people needed to be licensed for, and we do have lots of braiders at Sola. So it, it really is mostly beauty based. 

ASHLEY: It’s exciting to know that there are so many options. I do have to say, I am just floored about the percentages because kind of high level, I would have thought that it would have been about 60% hair. So 85 is, is surprising to me. And as a nail professional, I want to share with you. I am a session manicurist. So I do like set work and things like that, and I’ve previously booth rented in a skincare salon to do nails, and it was very difficult to make that schedule work. That’s a long story for another time, but what’s keeping me personally from becoming a studio owner with Sola is the rent price. And I’d love if you could speak to how the suites are priced, when it comes to the discipline of the renter. So case in point, the average dollar sale for a hair professional is usually well over a hundred dollars. whereas nails and waxing, usually under $50. Has Sola ever considered doing a sliding scale or a differing rate based on the discipline of the owner? 

JENNIE: We really haven’t because it’s really all based on a real estate model in terms of space. You know, how much is the overall rent of the space and how can we? Any business has to figure out how to make ends meet. And so, you know, we are looking at how much is our rent? How much is rent across the city? You know, I, I live in Denver where we have about 15 Sola locations and depending on where you are in town, the rent is going to vary greatly. And so, you know, there are smaller studios that, that work best for nail techs. I would say talk to the Sola owner and see if there’s a studio that, that might have a smaller square footage that you’d be able to look into. And then the other option is there are a lot of people who share studios, so people who alternate days. So looking into a way that you might be able to work out of a hair studi or even with another nail tech, but no, we haven’t really looked at sliding scale based on how much people are charging because everyone’s charging something different. I mean, there are hairdressers who are charging $25 for a haircut and there’s hairdressers that are charging 500. So it just depends, I think, on, again, how much space we have and then, you know, it’s very formulaic in terms of how we determine the studio rent, and it’s all based on, you know, the market that you’re in.

JAIME: So is that rate something that the franchisee sets or is that something set at corporate?

JENNIE: Yeah, that’s something that the franchisee sets. 

JAIME: Oh, very interesting. And you mentioned sharing a suite. Once the initial lease arrangement is set with the owner, then it’s up to them. They could be subletting to someone else? Does it matter or does Sola care who is working in, within that space?

JENNIE: Yes, we definitely care. I will say that that’s something that our stylists really care about. They want to know who has access to the building and who’s going to be walking up and down the halls. So when people are sharing a studio, they have a separate agreement with the main person on the lease and then they work out the financials between the two of them. Our franchisees are aware because obviously anybody that has access to the building needs things like a key fob and, you know, other access, needs to be able to be listed on the Sola website so they can show up in our directories and all of that. So, there are certain Sola locations that may not allow sharing, but we are leaning more nowadays towards allowing that because it is important that the stylist who may only want to work two or three days a week has that flexibility to find somebody to work out at the same space with them. And, you know, they ended up being almost like co-business owners together in many cases. And sometimes they move up, and move into a double studio and, and it’s a growth opportunity as well. 

ASHLEY: You mentioned the community within a specific location. I’d love to know how the ecosystem within a building of studio or suite owners, how does that differ from maybe renting a station or a room at a typical beauty salon?

JENNIE: Well, I think that the community here at Sola locations are very organic. So you’re going to walk into one location in one part of the city and another location in another, and the community feel is going to feel different, you know Cause we don’t force community. We do invite people to happy hours or holiday parties. We have a lot of education events. So a lot of our franchise owners are doing local education. We have national education with our Sola Sessions events. So people end up sort of commingling all across the country and even in Canada as well. They’re part of a much larger community, but in terms of that local community, it really depends on who’s working in the space and if they are looking for that more social aspect or if they’re not. And I, I remember when I first started at Sola, the esthetician that I mentioned who I was a client of, I told her, guess what? I’m, I’m the head of marketing at Sola now and I’m helping to put on the picnic at the end of the summer. And she was so sweet. She was like, oh, Jennie. That’s really cute, but I’m not here for picnics. I’m just here for work. And it made me realize then and there that not everybody wants that. And I think that that’s why some people end up leaving traditional salons because they may not fit in. They may not do well as an employee that you know, and I hear this a lot from, from stylists. Well, I came to Sola because I just wasn’t a really a very good employee, and I’m not a very good team member, and I really need to be in my own space. And so the reason why community is so different at Sola is because they can have community while without interfering with each other’s business at all. So they don’t interact with each other’s guests. They’re not answering the phones for each other, or covering for each other, or anything like that. You know, sometimes there are people that build partnerships in a Sola and I love seeing partnerships. So a nail tech, for instance, might have a really good partnership with a hairdresser and they’re sending business back and forth, or maybe there’s somebody that specializes in curly hair and every other hairdresser in the space will then, you know, if somebody calls them about curly hair, they may send them to that specialist. And so you see them, you know, really collaborating. I see and I’ve heard this so many times at Sola, collaboration over competition. I really don’t see anybody ever competing with each other. It just doesn’t happen. And so it’s sort of a choice. You have people that lean into the community, and you have other people that come in and out of their space, and they go home at the end of the day, and they don’t really interact a whole lot. 

JAIME: Admittedly not knowing what the financial requirements are of being approved to have a lease with Sola, and I hope you will elaborate on that just a bit, and knowing that there is so much diversity within the industry, what are some of the attributes that successful suite owners seem to have in common?

JENNIE: Successful attributes. So I mean, it’s that drive and that motivation. You know, like you said, when you come in, you’re an independent salon owner. You’re wearing all the hats for yourself. So you have to be driven. You have to be hungry. You have to be, you know, excited to grow or at least maintain your clientele. There’s always going to be attrition. So knowing that you’re, you’re going to be continually looking for new clients. I think that we see a lot of people who are very motivated to do a lot of things in and out of the studio. Our most successful community members, they’re really engaged. I see a lot of people who, you know, we always say that we’re a community full of givers. When somebody is doing something that works, they share that back with other Sola stylists. You know, our Faces of Sola are like, I’m here to be your mentor because somebody mentored me. I think the most successful people have systems in place so they come in, and whether they lean into the programs that Sola has, you know, created, like Sola Genius and Beauty Hive, which is our e-commerce, online website distribution, whether they are using the book now feature, setting up their Sola web page. You know, it’s all of those things. Or if they have all their own systems that are outside of what Sola offers, it doesn’t really matter to us if you use our programs or not. We just want you to have the systems in place so that you are working smarter and not harder, so that you’re not answering the phone all day when you’re with your guests and that’s interfering with their experience, or at the end of the day sitting and listening to voicemails, and missing out on that time with your family, um, it can make it really difficult. So putting systems in place is really important. I also think people who take the time to understand their, their numbers, to really know their KPIs and they, they know where they’re making money. They know if they’re making more money on service or retail. They know where they’re leaving money on the table. We have a lot of people that, unfortunately, aren’t retailing. Our most successful salon owners are retailing because there is a huge opportunity in retail and take home, and increasing your bottom line that way. It’s a lot of different things that lead to success, but I think that we share all of that success back. So if you look on the Sola blog, it’s just chock full of success stories.

ASHLEY: I couldn’t agree more that it is so important to know your numbers and to run this business like a business instead of a fun, creative hobby which is, I think, possibly an opportunity a lot of beauty professionals have because we entered this industry, right, to be creative and to express ourselves. And it can be difficult when you know you have to be the marketer, and the accountant, and the disciplinarian, and all of these other things. But, in your last answer, you mentioned attrition and that kind of perked my ears up because I don’t know enough about the operations of a suite to know what the typical attrition rate might be. But, I’d love to know, like what’s the typical lease term length and what does happen to those pros who find themselves in over their heads and say, oh, you know what? This might be a move I should make two, or five, or 10 years down the road. 

JENNIE: Sure. Well, when I did mention attrition, I meant, you know, the clients of the hairdressers. If a client leaves, knowing that you can, that you have to replace them because I have heard it before where I came to Sola, I had 250 clients, and now and here I am five years later, and I only have 50, and it’s people that are sort of resting on their laurels, right? And so they need to know that there’s always going to be that. Someone’s going to move out of the city that you live in so they’re not going to be able to be your client anymore. And um, so you always have to be building your book of business, of course, until your books are full, and I love hearing that story. But in terms of the lease time at Sola, most people sign either one or two year lease agreements, but we have people who have stayed. I mean, we’re celebrating 17 years with Sola, next week, actually, and Kimmie Bennett, is the first stylist to ever sign her lease at Sola and she’s still there. She’s not in the same studio that she was in. She’s in a beautiful double studio at the front with these big windows, um, actually in a different location, but she has managed to continue growing her business year after year for 17 years. And we have a lot of stylists that have been at Sola for a very long time. We want to help people so that if they are leaving Sola, that they’re moving on to something bigger, rather than what we were talking about before, where they went from 200 clients to 50 and now they can’t make it. So our goal is to help people make sure that they’re continuing to grow because there’s so many opportunities to keep growing, like you said, when you know those KPIs. 

JAIME: When someone does build their business and they feel like they have more clients than they can handle, and they want to expand their business, you mentioned that they might be able to take over additional space and perhaps combine suites to expand their footprint, but are they also in a position to take on employees? Because as you mentioned that Sola does not obviously directly employ anybody, but in helping beauty pros grow their businesses, I understand that some of them might want to take on employees within their own suites.

JENNIE: Yes. And they are, those, those employees would be employees of that stylist or that service provider. So yes, we see that all the time. We have a lot of people that have assistants, you know, that work in their studios with them. And then again, yeah, we have three sizes. So you see people who go from that standard studio size up to a large, and that’s a really exciting moment for them because now they have a separate sink and shampoo bowl, and a separate sink for their color bar. They have some additional space, and then we have a third size, which is a double with two chairs. But it doesn’t really stop there. I’ve seen people who have knocked down walls and have three studios combined, and they’re operating in a more traditional type of salon footprint. It depends on what kind of relationship they have with their franchise owner. Of course, if you show up and want to knock down a bunch of walls, that’s a little bit different than I’ve been here for many years and I’m loyal, and if you invest in my space, I’ll invest back in being here for longer. So I don’t want to promise that that can happen everywhere, but, but we do see it happen for sure. 

ASHLEY: Well, this has been incredibly enlightening. And Jennie, I want to thank you so much for your time and really allowing us to put you through the ringer a bit about all of these questions that I know a lot of our listeners have. So to wrap, I would just love to know what’s something our listeners might not know about Sola, that you’d love to just shout from the rooftops. 

JENNIE: Oh gosh. One thing I think that I want everyone to know that when you join a community like Sola, and our community in particular, that you have a voice, that you have an option to share ideas with us, that we survey our community, that we’re listening, that all of these tools that I’ve mentioned in this conversation have been created because of the needs that our community has brought to us, the things that our community has expressed that they either need help with. We are always looking to help people solve problems. So I want them to know that they have a voice and they have people who are listening and people who are learning. And while we might not be able to snap our fingers and build an app in five minutes, we can certainly put our efforts into creating these kinds of solutions. And, you know, when I joined Sola eight years ago, we didn’t have any of these programs. And it’s all because when I first started at Sola, I started going to get my hair cut. Like I had this joke that I was going to get so many haircuts, that how long was it going to be before I had a blonde bob? Because I had really long brown hair at the time and my hair has been blonde, brown, red, all of it, but it, it’s funny. Cause then I look back and I’m like, okay, it was two and a half years and then, then I had a blonde bob. I spent a lot of time listening to our community and education was something that just kept coming up. And so we developed an app. We started live education events. We have local education events. We have webinars, and takeovers, and Facebook lives, and such great partnerships with the industry to provide education. And that’s all because that’s what the stylists were telling me that they needed. So find a brand that supports you and is going to help you grow. And at Sola, we definitely want to, to help our community succeed. That’s the whole reason why we’re here.

ASHLEY: And I know, Jennie, you are the host of the Sola Stories podcast. Where can our listeners find you to get more info?

JENNIE: Yes. So the Sola Stories podcast. You can find it anywhere where you listen to your podcasts. If you want to connect with me, I’m on Instagram at jenniethewolff,  and connect with us at Sola Salons. That’s the most important to me, of course. 

ASHLEY: Excellent. Well, thank you again for your time. We’ve learned a ton and, yeah, I just can’t wait to hear what our listeners’ reactions are. And of course they’ll connect with us on Instagram as per usual, but we’ll make sure we follow each other and signal boost everything.   

JENNIE: Jaime and Ashley, thank you so much. It was so awesome to connect with you today. 

JAIME: Thank you, Jennie.  

ASHLEY: Jaime, another enlightening episode with a great guest to help us get into the nitty gritty of what it’s really like to be a suite owner.

JAIME: That’s not something that I’ve ever considered having either rented in another salon or owned my own and have signed on that bottom line and have taken care of all the responsibilities myself. But it’s nice to know that, that we do have options.

ASHLEY: I think it’s another way that we can knock down a barrier to entry for those of us who maybe can’t afford to do a commercial lease right away, or want the flexibility and freedom that Jennie was mentioning to have our own hours, and to make all of the decisions, and to figure out what products we want to carry, and all of those things. So lots of food for thought. I am excited to continue this conversation with all of our listeners on Instagram. Feel free to connect with us there at @outgrowthpodcast.

JAIME: If you’re enjoying Outgrowth, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Just visit bit.ly/outgrowthpodcast.

ASHLEY: Until next week, be smart. 

JAIME: Be safe. 

ASHLEY: Bye 

JAIME: Bye.

Described as the best beauty podcast in 2021, Outgrowth Podcast is for hairstylists, nail techs, estheticians, massage therapists and lash technicians. Hosted by beauty industry experts Ashley Gregory Hackett and Jaime Schrabeck, PhD, this salon industry podcast has helpful  interviews with guests that teach topics from increasing salon clientele, salon marketing, covid guidelines, beauty industry insights, starting a salon, renting a salon suite, salon Instagram tips, and how to run a successful salon. Join us for weekly episodes of hair podcasts, nail podcasts, esty podcast, and more.

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