34. Slow down and honour your craft
Slow down salon craft and focus on what truly matters: skill, connection, and quality. You’ll learn how to build a more rewarding business and happier clients.
Slow Down for Better Service
Stop treating express services as your main offering. They should only fill gaps in your schedule, not drive your daily work. Without time, you can’t make your client feel special or deliver your best work.
Put Clients First, Not Speed
Clients on express services often don’t leave feeling their best. There’s no room for advice on aftercare, or a real moment of connection. Your time with them is precious – give it the attention it deserves.
Learn from Barbering’s Success
Barbering is growing fast, not because of cheap prices, but because barbers invest in their craft. They’ve retrained in old techniques and sharp skills, building real respect and loyalty.
Charge for Real Skill
People are happy to pay more when they know they’re getting top quality. Barbering shows this – higher prices, better results, and more customers. You can do the same with your salon craft.
Rediscover Your Industry Roots
Many stylists today don’t know the history of hairdressing. Look back at the pioneers who shaped the industry. Their stories and methods can inspire your work and give it meaning.
Grow Your Skills Every Day
Never stop learning. Train yourself and your team regularly. When your skills are sharp, your confidence grows, and your clients notice the difference.
Make Time for the Full Experience
Your client’s time in the salon is their only quiet moment all week. Use it well. Slow down, talk, listen, and create something special. That’s what keeps people coming back.
This episode is about building a salon that values craft over speed. Phil Jackson shares how real skill, history, and care bring lasting success. If you want to grow your salon with purpose, visit buildyoursalon.com for more tools and ideas.
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Hi everyone, this is the weekly Build Your Salon podcast with me, Phil Jackson. I'm here with the tools you need to generate the profits you deserve so that you can lead a fuller life. Hello and welcome. Actually, this week it's hola y bienvenidos because I'm speaking to you today very early in the morning before it gets too hot on my roof terrace in my new house in Spain. So those of you who have been buying my information products online, particularly the Salon Recruitment Roadmap, this is what you're paying for. Thank you very much. This week my message to you is that I'd like you to slow down, take a bit more time. I've seen a very distressing trend in salons over the last few years and we're getting addicted to express services. We're getting addicted to these little nuggets of service that we're passing on to clients at very low cost and banging them out at a very rapid rate. Now, I'm not suggesting that we get rid of all express services. They are what I see as a profit maximiser. So they're an add-on. They're a fill-in for those little gaps that you get during your day in your column. They shouldn't be something that we rely on day in and day out, and this is what's happening. I see particular stylists or therapists, in fact sometimes whole salons, who are completely reliant on express services. So I want you to ask yourself, when you're doing an express service, is this the very best job that you could do for that client? Is she leaving your salon feeling the very best that she possibly could? If she's having an express service, have you got all the time that you need to pass on the information and aftercare advice that you need to? In an express service, have you got time to make her feel special? I don't think you have. The danger, I think, over time is that we're not paying attention to our craft anymore. What we're not doing is actually the best job that we can to impress people with the experience they can get. This is very often the only bit of time that a customer gets to herself in her week. So let's make it special for her. You can't do that on an express service. I'd like you to pay attention to what's going on with our friends in the barbering industry because barbering's had a massive resurgence over the last two to three years, and it doesn't look like it's slowing down any time soon either. Now, barbering was the victim of what I call the race to the bottom. So it seemed that every time a barber shop opened up, it was 50 pence or a dollar cheaper than the barber shop had opened previously.
So each time a barber shop opened, the haircuts seemed to be getting cheaper and cheaper. They were completely reliant on very quick clipper cuts and not offering very much in the way of experience at all. Now, this massive resurgence that's happening in barbering isn't happening off the back of very quick clipper cuts. It's not even happening off the back of cheap services. It's happening off the back of people paying into their craft. So they're retraining in ancient barbering techniques, they're retraining in excellent cutting skills, and they're pushing out a higher price service in many instances to a much bigger audience. And the audience is absolutely lapping it up. Now, I think we could be transferring that into the hair and beauty industry as well. I think we need to pay attention to our craft, pay into the training, keep developing yourself and your team, so that your skills are absolutely fantastic. The other thing that I think that's missing, particularly in hairdressing, is there's no history, there's no culture with a lot of stylists anymore. Go back, have a look at the people that formed our industry and turned it in to the trade that we're applying today. So slow down, start moving away from the express services, push the experience, build your training, build your craft. I hope that's been useful to you. If it has, don't forget to subscribe. I do a video like this, actually maybe not quite like this, every Monday, and I would hate you to miss out on the content that I'm sharing. Until then, take care. Hey everyone, it's Phil again. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, please subscribe and be sure to tell your friends. For more help and information on running your salon and your life, head over to buildyoursalon.com. I'll see you there.
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