How To Run A Successful Salon Team Meeting

Get team meetings right and you've put a fundamental pillar in place to help your salon business reach the next level. Get them wrong, you're going to be talking to yourself in an empty room very, very quickly. Here are my top tips for great team meetings. Hello, hello, hello my salon friends, Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons, coming in your eyes and ears again. Here at the beginning of October, how on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope. This episode is unapologetically for those people who have a team, and I'm a big fan of employers and people that run teams in our salon industry. Now, I know that I'm flying in the face of a growing trend towards people having their own businesses and being self-employed, but there's a reason that I want to take care of employers, and that's because they are the custodians, the guardians of the future of our industry. It's very grandiose, isn't it? Sounds terribly imposing on these poor business owners. But ultimately, I don't think a model which relies on people running small self-employed businesses is doing an awful lot for the next generation of beauty therapists, estheticians, and hairdressers. I think we need some people in our industry, in our economy, who are pushing forward with that more traditional apprenticeship model, where people are learning on the job, where they're learning from people with more experience, where they're being mentored as part of their employment. And I don't think we have a future industry without at least some of that going on. But it's tough. Employing people is really hard work. And it doesn't always feel that those who have the power in our economy and in our nations have necessarily got employers at the heart of some of the policies that they're making. It does feel like it's getting harder and harder and less and less profitable to employ people in the longer term. So I understand why people are bucking the trend a little bit. I understand why people are pushing away from that employed model. But this episode is for you if you have a team. And part of having a team is team meetings. And they can be extremely disruptive. They can be a huge problem for a lot of businesses. Take it from one who knows, my dears. I had some horrendous team meetings over the years. In fact, when I very first started my salon journey, my idea of a team meeting was basically me standing in front of my team, screaming and shouting until everybody was in tears.

And then that was the end of the meeting. I thought that was the I thought that was the best way to motivate people to work harder was to terrify them. And I was a horrible employer for quite some time. In my defence, the only other salon I'd worked in had a boss who was a bit of a monster. I think in the couple of years that I was working there, we only had two team meetings. And guess what happened in those team meetings? My boss screamed and shouted and stamped her feet. Everybody cried. And then we all went home. So I thought that was how a successful salon was run, because the person that I used to work for ran a very successful franchise. That said, there is a better way. And team meetings can be hugely valuable as part of your communication with your team. Now, I'm not talking about our one-to-ones. I think there's a huge amount to be gained by putting a proper structure for one-to-one meetings in place. If this is something you need some help with, then please reach out. Let me know, phil at buildyoursalon.com. I'd love to do some performance management podcasts if that's of interest to you. I'm talking about getting your team in a room together so that you can share. Now, I get sometimes that's physically quite a tricky thing to do, because we've got people that are working different shifts, different days. There's an awful lot of people working part-time in our industry now. And I'm all for it, by the way. I do think that work-life balance should definitely be in the favour of life first. I don't think we should be spending all of our time in our businesses. But just physically getting people in the same space can be tricky and challenging. So what I would suggest you do, if you do have a team which is kind of fractured, if you do have a team where some team members actually don't even see each other on the regular, then I would maybe think about moving the timing of your team meeting around a little bit. So unless it's important enough for you to want to pay everyone to come in for the team meeting, what I would say is maybe have a team meeting on a Tuesday morning, and then the next team meeting, perhaps move it to a Friday. So you catch different parts of the team each time, and then just make sure that you're keeping really good notes and communicating what went on in the team meeting with whoever could not make it. But why do we want these team meetings at all?

More than ever, people want to feel part of something bigger than themselves. They want to feel part of something that is bigger than their own career. If they've chosen to take a job, an employed position in a salon or beauty business, then they want to feel part of something. They want something they can get behind. And team meetings are a fundamental tool in getting that buy-in, about communicating more than just the day-to-day, communicating your vision for your business, what your business is about, your ethos, your culture. All of that comes in spade loads when we get our teams in the same room. It's also, incidentally, a brilliant way of squishing the gossip. If you've got a bit of news that you want everyone to hear at the same time, then a team meeting is the best place to do it. Rather than you whispering in one person's ear and then passing it on to two people. And then by the time everybody in the team has got the message, the message gets very convoluted. It's like that game we used to play when we were at school, isn't it? But also, I do think that team meetings should be a meeting. It's not a lecture. It should be a two-way communication. And we're blessed in our industry. We have so many people who have tons of creativity. But I don't see us tapping into our team's creativity enough when it comes to the business. If you're really stuck for an idea for an autumn promotion in your business, by the way, your autumn promotion should be done and dusted by now, just saying. If you're really struggling with ideas for an autumn promotion, ask your team. Make sure they understand that this is a consultative process, that you're looking for their ideas to maybe take on board. Just because they come up with something doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen. But for them to feel listened to, for them to feel their ideas are taken seriously, and for you to stop looking at a blank page struggling for inspiration can be so valuable, so valuable in the running of your business. So tap in to your team's creativity. It's not all plain sailing, of course, with team meetings. And I know that I've had some very negative experiences. I can think of one or two team members who did that wonderful thing with their body language where the legs are crossed and the arms are crossed and they won't make eye contact with you. And it all feels a bit of a chore, lots of eye rolling and huffing and puffing. And I had one team member in particular who did a wonderful job of just throwing me a curveball.

You know, I'd be holding what I thought was quite a positive team meeting, something that was getting everybody excited about what was coming up in the business. And then she would throw something into the equation, which was really negative and just kind of, excuse my French, piss on my barbecue a little bit, spoil my meeting and demotivate everybody. So what can we do in those instances? Well, if you've got somebody who's really negative, then call them out on it. If you've got somebody who's giving you those really negative body language vibes, then why not just say, actually, the way that you're positioning yourself makes me feel like you're not interested. Is there something that you want to share? Is there something that you can bring to the meeting that would be more engaging for everybody? What are your thoughts on it? And when it comes to people throwing you a curveball, I have my one fundamental, absolutely vital tool for every single team meeting. And that is a strong agenda. This also, of course, dictates the frequency of the meetings. If you haven't got enough to fill an agenda, then do you really need a team meeting in the first place? I would suggest not. Frequency wise, in my salon, it was always about every three weeks. I thought it was plenty to get everybody in one room. But in times of change, then you might want lots more team meetings. So you have as many as is needed and not a single one more. Nobody wants to go through the motions when it comes to having a meeting. But before you schedule the meeting, put an agenda on the wall with what you're going to be discussing. Put it on the team meeting, put it on the staff room wall rather, and ask people to contribute anything that they want to bring up in the staff meeting as well. Now, what's going to happen next? Either nothing, nobody will put any ideas on your agenda at all, or you will get some ideas that you want to discuss, which is fantastic. We can allocate some time in the schedule for it. Or you might get some negative stuff that actually you don't really want to discuss in your team meeting at all. So what can we do in those instances? Well, we take the person to one side, we acknowledge that the idea is important, and we take it away from your group setting. So basically what I would say is, Nelly, I see that you put something on the agenda about people not clearing up after themselves and that making it not a very nice work environment, and you wanted to discuss that as a group. I think this is really important, but I'm worried in our team meeting, we're not going to have enough time to give it the air that it needs to discuss it properly.

So how about you and me and Betty sit down separately in a meeting dedicated to that topic? So we're indicating to Nelly that we're taking the issue seriously. We're not saying that it's something we're just going to brush to one side. We're giving it the room to breathe, but we're keeping the agenda nice and positive and motivating for all. Does that mean we can never deliver bad news in a team meeting? No, of course not. This is real life. This is grown-up life, and sometimes we do need to share stuff which is less positive. But ultimately, we do try and make sure that they're having a positive contribution to the business, if not every element of the content can be positive too. So what have I missed? Reach out and let me know. Phil at buildyoursalon.com. You know I love hearing from my salon owner friends anyway. What are you doing to make your team meetings positive and inspiring and a positive contribution to your business? Or perhaps you have some struggles with team meetings. Why not reach out and let me know? We've got a question and answer episode coming up in a couple of weeks' time. I'd love to be helping directly with the issues that you have in your business. In the meantime, just seven short days until I'm coming in your eyes and ears again with another dose of my wise old owl wisdom. And until then, take care.