Commit fully and ignore your friends!

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, and today I want to talk to you about doubt. I want to confess to you how I have managed to jeopardise the future success of my business by letting doubt plant its seed in my mind. And essentially what I've done is try to kid myself that I'm one kind of person when I'm a different type of person. Let me explain. I've decided that it is now time for us to expand in my salon. We're doing really well, I've got a team that's solid, and I think that we can afford to take on perhaps a second premises, maybe somewhere a bit bigger, slightly different location, try and broaden my horizons a little bit, try to push the business in some different directions. As you know, everything that I share with you during these broadcasts is stuff that I've tried in my own salon. So my salon is my testing ground. It's where I experiment, where I bring different strategies in, different products, different services, where I try different training techniques to see whether they work or not. And then I share the results with you, my friends, so that you can learn from my mistakes. And there's lots of learning to be done in one salon. But I thought that maybe if we had a second salon, that would be twice as many lessons. We could run the salons in a slightly different way, maybe even split test things like training and recruitment strategy. So I decided that now was the time we were going to take the plunge, despite the economic environment being a little bit shaky and everyone being a little bit wary about spending any money. And so I've spent the last probably 18 months traipsing around different salons or traipsing around different empty units in various towns, trying to find the ideal location for my second baby. And I have to say, it's been very frustrating. Lots of salons for sale at the moment, unsurprisingly. Times are tough for everybody. But there's a lot of salons, but there's no business there at all, really. And actually, if you take the owner away, I'm fairly sure that all turnover would disappear as well and you're left with a liability. And lots of empty retail units too. So it's been a bit frustrating, I'll be honest with you. I'm the kind of person who goes with their gut and there was nothing that was jumping out at me and saying, this was a fantastic opportunity for my business. And then, beautifully, something came along in a town, a similar profile to the town we're operating in at the moment,

but about 40 miles away. So no chance of the two businesses cannibalising each other. Yes, it was a bit of a gamble because it was not an existing salon. It was a brand new retail unit. So there'd been lots of outlay, trying to build up a clientele and trying to get some stylists in there and get them busy. So it would have been a bit of a gamble financially, but also really exciting starting from scratch, putting my own thumbprint on a unit and trying to make a splash in a town where nobody had heard of us. And I was really excited. Then I did something very stupid and I started talking to people about my plans. And as you know, I'm a great one for taking on advice. I don't believe that you can be in this salon industry for any length of time without taking on some professional advice from time to time, if not continually. But I've also always said that free advice is worth precisely what you have paid for it. Nothing. And I started to take on free advice. So I was talking to my friends about our plans. I was talking about talking to family about my plans. I was even talking to the old customer who I've had for a very long time about my plans. Now, unsurprisingly, they were less enthusiastic than I was. And this is when I should have stopped listening. OK, I should have gone with my gut. But I didn't. I started listening and I let people plant seeds of doubt in my mind. And my message to you today is that doubt is a horrible, vile, insidious weed that will tear apart your entrepreneurship. It will tear apart your business and destroy any chance you have of future growth. If there's any doubt about the direction that you're taking in your business at the moment, you rip that doubt out by the roots and you replace it with optimism. But I let doubt take seed in my mind. So I thought, given that I've been in business now for about 15 years and I've made lots and lots of mistakes along the way, I thought maybe this time I'll handle things slightly differently. Maybe instead of jumping in with both feet, maybe instead of going balls deep straight away, I would actually do some research, maybe spend some time, ignore my gut instincts for a little while and justify the decisions I was making. So I played it really cool with the estate agent, backed off a little bit, said, yeah, I'm interested, but keep me posted on any progress. And of course, this morning I had the inevitable phone call. Somebody else has taken that opportunity. Somebody else has got hold of that retail unit. And just to add insult to injury, the buggers are opening a salon in there as well. And I bet they do really well. And I actually do wish them all the very best.

Who knows? Perhaps they'll employ me as a salon consultant at some stage. But my message to you is this. I let doubt take seed in my mind and it did me no favours. Because actually on reflection, yes, I've made loads of mistakes, particularly in marketing, recruitment, in the direction that my salon was taking for a very long time. But actually those gut instincts, they've also served me well. Because 15 years later, we're making good money. We're making good money. I've got a great team. My salon is thriving to the extent that I can justify trying to expand. So my message to you today is please tear doubt out. If you've got doubters around you, in your friends, in your family, you've got to start ignoring them. Push all their advice to one side. Because they're only trying to protect you. But what's very uncomfortable for people is if you start to change, if you start to shift and become the unknown entity in somebody's life, they don't like it. They don't like that level of change in someone they're intimate with. Your family's trying to protect you by saying things like, do you not think you're successful enough? Are you sure you're not taking on too much? Can you cope with any more stress? Yes, they're trying to protect you. It's coming from a place of love. But that kind of doubt will destroy your future potential. I hope that's been useful to you. I hope you can learn from my horrible mistake this week and not let opportunities get away from you by planting seeds of doubt in your mind. If it has been useful, don't forget to subscribe. I do a broadcast like this every single Monday and I would hate you to miss out on the content that I'm sharing. And sometimes there's good news as well. It's not all about me failing dismally. In the meantime, I'm sure there's going to be lots more to share, as I've got three more viewings next week. I'm back on the horse and I'm going to get that second salon this year if it bloody well kills me. If you've already subscribed, I will see you next week. 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.