Is there more to salon education? with Chris Moody

For some of us in salons, when we talk about education, we start thinking about college and stale old lecturers who haven't been in salons for years. One person who doesn't believe that education needs to be that way is my guest today. Hello, hello, hello, my salon friends. Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons, coming in your eyes and ears again with another dose of wise old owl wisdom. But you lucky thing, you're not going to be getting my wisdom today. Instead, we have a guest who's going to be talking all things education. And I'm going to be joined by Chris Moody. Let me read his bio. Chris Moody is a hairdresser and education specialist, a trailblazer in adult education over three decades. His name has become synonymous with empowerment through dynamic teaching and an unwavering commitment to shaping a brighter future through education. His mission is to elevate the standards of hair, personal care and holistic therapy industries by empowering fellow professionals to deliver energized and engaging education. It really is an honor to have Chris with us. He's an international educator. So he's got a little bit of the flavor from around the world on the state of in salon education. Let's get him on the show. So, Chris, it's your job today to help us navigate the changing landscape of salon education. And things have changed enormously. It feels like almost everybody wants to be an educator these days. And that's been a huge shift, hasn't it? Because I'm from the dark ages where salon education meant college, really. And that was kind of where hairdressers and beauty therapists went to retire and die when they didn't want to stand behind a chair anymore. They would toddle off to college and probably never set foot in a salon again. And that's not the case anymore. So what do you think triggered that change? I think what triggered that change is, well, first of all, let me just say there's a mantra that I live by and I really believe it. And I think that absolutely anyone can teach someone something. I think we've all got something to learn from each other and we've all got some information that we can pass on to someone else. So I think anybody can teach. I think what we have to be able to do is we have to learn how to teach because teaching is a skill and skills can be taught. So although I think anybody can teach somebody something, we all have something to share, we do need to learn how to teach. And I think what happened over the last few years and people sometimes blame the pandemic, but I think it happened a long time before then. I think it was with the onset of social media. It was such a huge change, a huge shift.

It provided a shop window for people so people could exhibit their wares to a much wider audience and people would follow them and get excited by them. And you and I both know hairdressers who made a huge following on mermaid hair and vivid color and rainbow hair and people thinking, oh, my gosh, how do you do that? And then silver hair came along. How do you do that? And so people were getting asked, how do you achieve these results? And people started sharing how they achieve these results and then clicked on to the fact that, hang on a minute, maybe I could make a business out of this. Maybe I could make some money out of this as well and have a side business to my hairdressing business. And henceforth, everybody started to share their information. It kind of shifted a little bit too far. I mean, I do think if we're not careful, we're in a position now where there's going to be more educators than learners if we're not careful. You know, everybody is calling themselves an educator. I believe that everybody can share something. But if you really want to get into the nitty gritty of education, I think you have to learn the pedagogy, learn the skills of teaching. Okay. And is there then almost by definition, I guess, if you've got a number of people entering a marketplace, there's a danger at least that the quality starts to come down. Has that happened? Absolutely. I think so. Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a there's a huge almost backlash in that now where there are a lot of very established educators that are putting those warnings out, if you like. Just saying, look, be careful if you choose a mentor, if you choose a coach, if you choose an educator, just be mindful who you choose. Because here's the thing, Phil, in delivering education, it's not simply enough to be able to do what you can do. It's not simply enough to have the skills in your hands and the knowledge in your head. You have to be able to transfer those skills and that knowledge into the head and hands of somebody else. We all know people that can do things really, really well. But when we question them on it, they'll often respond with, well, I don't know how I do it. I just kind of do it, really just kind of happens for me. That's great. That's a really admirable, natural skill. But unless you can transfer that information across into somebody else, then what you'll get instead of getting teachers, you'll get exhibitors. And what we have now is we have a lot of people that are trying to teach. But what they're actually doing is exhibiting. There's a big difference between exhibiting and teaching. Neither one is right or wrong, but it's important that we establish which one is which.

And as far as quality and training is concerned, then, is it up to the marketplace to decide, you know, who floats and who sinks? Or is it a government role where they bring in legislation and accreditation for courses? Whose job is it to make sure we're getting a good bang for our buck with education? That's a great question, Phil. These are really good questions. I have to say these are some of the best questions I've had on a podcast lately. They're great. And I'm going to be a bit controversial here. I'm not a big fan of regulation. I know there's a huge thing at the moment. I know everybody talking about regulation. No, we're on the same page. This is music to my ears. We'll talk about this another time. But I'm not a big fan of it. I think we can regulate too much and we can stifle things as well. I believe that our industry, certainly in the UK, I mean, over the last 40 years, we've lost our place. We used to be very much at the top of our game. We were very much at the top of the food chain. But I think we've either lost our place or we're losing our place and we're slipping. And that's because I think our industry was made of, you use that word, trailblazers. It was made of trailblazers, of mavericks, of people who broke rules. We're in a creative industry. And in order to create innovation, we have to break some rules. I think if we're too tied with rules, then we can become stifled. So I think regulation has to be very careful. I also think that we're a very clever industry, much cleverer than the general public give us credit for. We're entrepreneurial. We're business people. We're communicators. We're very agile. And I think to a certain extent, we are very capable of policing ourselves. And as you know, if a market is not enjoying the results it's getting from a supplier, then it will simply move to another supplier. And it almost becomes self-regulatory, if you like. Now, I think the problem in education is that there are a lot of people taking a lot of money and promising a lot of things. Now, that's a slightly different matter. We have to be careful of protecting people from, I'm going to use the word charlatans, really, who say, give me five thousand pounds and in three months I will make you this, that and the other. That's not necessarily the case. So I think it's definitely buyer beware. We have to be careful about whose trust, you know, we take and who we place our future in the hands of and certainly who we pay money to.

But I think to a certain extent, I think government and governing bodies can kind of oversee certain things, just have to be careful of too much regulation. We can go too far the other way. I think for me, particularly in hairdressing, I think there's always been a bit of an identity crisis in the industry. And I think trying to bring about legislation and regulation and a set of regulations which makes sense to say someone who wants to open a franchise is very different to someone who wants to do hair for session work, for example. And you can't really have one qualification for all of that. I have real problems with it. And I've always been very wary of the extra financial burden it's putting on on salon owners when we start to regulate. Anyway, another podcast for another day. I would just like to add on to that, though, Phil, because, again, I think it's a great point. And I think you've really hit on something about the identity crisis. I think the issue is in hairdressing and it's like it's not unique that are a lot of industries like this. We deal in subjective matter. So if we were dealing in banking or if we were dealing in accountancy, it's very objective. Two plus two equals four. And that's it. But it's very difficult to define what a good haircut is or what a good lesson is. Learning itself is very difficult to measure. We can measure progress and we can measure test results like GCSEs. That's why our school system still has exams, because it's the only way to measure progress. But it's very difficult to measure learning. And unless you can measure something, it's very difficult to regulate it. My worry is that it will stagnate because we have to regulate things. And I'm sure, please forgive me if I've got it wrong, but I would imagine in the legal world, there's also a little bit of subjectivity as well, which is, you know, what the whole legal world is based on. It's not necessarily black and white. There are different interpretations. So it becomes very difficult to really nail down what's right, wrong, good and bad. Just wanted to say that. Thank you. No, no, that's perfect. And actually, I've always felt that the insurers should get more involved. I've always felt that it was kind of their role to say either, yes, you're qualified and able to do this thing or you're not. Because that doesn't add any extra burden to us financially. We're not registering and we haven't got to pay a membership to anything every year. Yeah, you're absolutely right. So I'm going to ask you to annoy the whole of the UK now, because you're an international educator, an international educator of educators. So you said that we're on the slide here in the UK.

And if we haven't lost our crown, we're about to. Who's getting it right? I think there's a lot of countries getting it right. I think over there's some amazing emerging countries. I do a lot of work with a region called Asia Pacific, which is Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, even over into Australia and New Zealand. And there's some incredible work going on there. Some real kind of professional operations opening up some really strong sort of business ideas, financial ideas and some astounding creativity. And I think part of that, certainly over in the Asia Pacific area, is there's still a huge dedication to a real discipline behind art. So, you know, you can be as creative and as off the wall as you like. You know, you can be Tracy Emin or anybody. But there's still a discipline to it, if you know what I mean. There's still a rigor to it. And it goes back to this rule thing about the rules. You know, we're learning the rules. And the purpose of learning the rules is so that we know which ones to bend and which ones to break and which ones to innovate and things like that. So I think there are some countries that are really working really well. I do a lot of work in the USA and the USA is huge, but there is an emerging market of really high quality work, really high quality education going off there as well. And I think that in the UK, we're still we're still in the Premier League without any shadow of a doubt. But we mustn't take everything for anything for granted. You know, the days of Vidal and Tony and Guy and Trevor Sorby and Roger Thompson and all those people, you know, they're gone now. But we have to continue their legacy with the same amount of rigor, the same amount of care, the same amount of discipline. We have to really, you know, kind of take our legacy seriously and keep it going. OK, so what are we getting right here in the UK? Where do you see the strengths? I see the strengths just in our legacy, in our history, in our creativity. I think that we've always been a creative nation, whether it comes to music or to art or to hair, we've always been a creative nation. I think we have by nature, you know, kind of we're a striving nation. We're a small nation and we've always had a history of struggle. And I think struggle helps to create innovation. So I think we're still very courageous. We're still very brave and we're still very innovative and we're still doing that. I think that's what we're getting right. We're still pushing boundaries and innovating. I was reading your bio before we came on air and I noticed that you still work on the floor a couple of days a week.

I do. Yeah. How important is that to you, firstly, personally, and then also as an educator? Okay, so I'll answer that in two parts. Personally, it's very important to me. I came into this industry as a hairdresser, cutting hair on the salon floor, and I'm still working in the same salon that I started in 40 years ago. And I've still got some of the same clients that I've built a huge relationship with. I love that personal connection and I love the grounding that it brings me. So I could be in, I mean, I did an event not that long ago in Berlin. I think there's about 5,000 people in front of us and, you know, and you're really elevated and you get a big ego boost. And then you come back to your salon chair and Mrs. Brown says, well, that was very nice, but my fringe has been quite short and I want to kind of, and it really kind of brings you down to earth. I think that's important. So I still enjoy it. And also, Phil, it's relaxing. I'm in a really lucky position now, and I'm going to say this quite confidently. I don't do the hair of anybody that I don't want to. And so everybody that I work with, I enjoy their company and I enjoy working on them. So it's relaxing. I have a wonderful team of friends who work around me and I enjoy time with them. So personally, it's fulfilling professionally from an educator's point of view. I think it's somewhat vital because it connects me to the people who are at the end of this process. I sometimes teach hairdressers. Most of the time I teach the teachers of hairdressers. But either way, there's an end user and that's somebody that's at the coalface doing the work actually on the front line in the trenches. And because I am still one of those people, albeit just for two days a week, I still think it gives me a certain amount of relatability. And there are certain anecdotes that I can use for my communication that are true and relevant even today. Fantastic. You've got me really thinking now because I stopped working in the salon when we had children. And I do think it did lend a little bit of, not integrity necessarily, but there was a bit of authenticity that came with what I was saying because I was still at the coalface and I've never wanted to be the guru on the cloud. I've always wanted to be in the trenches with you.

But it's the clients. I just get so tired. I have to say, Phil, let me just let me just qualify this. I have a business partner that I'm about to go overseas with and work with for a few weeks. And he's one of my mentors. He hasn't worked on the salon floor for years. It makes him no less of an educator and no less of a performer. He has a huge amount of salon experience. He's older than I am. He just chooses not to be on the salon floor anymore. But it doesn't negate his relevance as an educator. I have another mentor who is not even a hairdresser, but he does salon business coaching. And again, he calls that into question all the time. Has he earned the right, having never owned a salon? But he's owned many businesses, many service businesses. And a lot of the lessons that he's teaching in the business side of hairdressing are lessons that he learned painfully through many, many other businesses. So I'm not saying that it makes you any more or less relevant. For me, it works, but it's very much a personal choice. I think there's actually a role for people to coach who have never had anything to do with the salon industry. A hundred percent. I think the danger in our industry is a lot of received wisdom and things are done this way because they've always been done this way. And I think that's really dangerous. So I think sometimes it takes an outsider to come in and just shake things up a little bit and say, well, why is it that way? Why is a cut and blow dry 45 minutes? Because it always has been, you know, it's not a good enough reason anymore. There shouldn't be any part. I could not agree more. I could not agree more. I think that's so relevant. And that's what we need to push forward. I always say to people, look, in order to be a coach, you don't have to be better than the person that you're coaching. You just have to make that person better than everyone else. You know, I always think about Usain Bolt when he was the fastest man on the planet. He had a coach. Of course, he had a coach, but he was the fastest man on the planet. So his coach wasn't a better runner or a faster runner. He didn't have to be. He just had to make Usain faster than everyone else on the track during that race. That's what a coach has to do. You don't have to outperform your student. You just have to make your student better than they were yesterday. And so was education and passing knowledge on, was that always part of your career?

Yes. Yes, it has. So my mum started our salon. I'm a hairdressing baby. Both my brother and I are hairdressing babies. And due to childcare issues, we were raised by clients and passed around the salon as many hairdressers were while my mum worked on the salon floor. My mum first took part in education back in 1958-59 when she wrote a letter to Videl congratulating him on this new work. He invited her down to his new salon in Bond Street. She ended up travelling down there regularly and working and observing with him. And then education just became a huge part of her life. And she was fascinated with it. And it was a huge part of her business. My brother then went on, before I left school, my brother went on to work for Videl Sassoon II. And he was head of their education, global education for about 35 years. And again, I saw what education can do. I saw that it didn't have to be in a classroom. It could be somewhere else. It could be something exciting. I started teaching myself on behalf of brands and wholesalers when I was about 19 years old. I have to say, Phil, dreadful. It was really dreadful. I was a terrible teacher, made a lot of mistakes. But I became fascinated with the process of educating, getting somebody from A to B and seeing light bulbs. And I became fascinated with why does one thing work and one thing doesn't? And why do I think that should be amazing, but my student thinks it's terrible? What's the disconnect? And I became fascinated with the process. And as I said in your bio, your information sheet that I filled out earlier, I've always considered myself privileged to be a student of education. I love studying how people learn. Talk to me about how people learn from you. So you travel around the world and deliver in-person seminars. But that kind of made me raise an eyebrow and it surprised me a little bit in that it wasn't much more of an online focus. Yeah. So why do you feel the need to be in the same room as people? What does that add that people can't get online? Yeah. Well, strangely enough, Phil, over the last six years, we've been doing online work. I'm doing an online class this evening, a big online class. And I probably spend about I would say I spend more of my time teaching online now than I do in person. And that's probably been accelerated by everyone staying at home after the pandemics and what have you. But that's certainly accelerated. I don't particularly believe that either one is better than the other.

I think they both have their strengths and let downs as well. I think the only advantage of working in the same room with people is there is a physical connection. You can be physically present with someone. You can reach out and touch. You can connect. If you're teaching motor skills, you can physically shift and change and manoeuvre people into particular positions. So there's a physical coaching aspect to it as well. I think there is a slightly different emotional energy. It's much more difficult to get the emotional energy over a screen. And so I think you can perhaps push effective learning comes through chaos. There's no way of learning without taking risk, without experiencing some emotion and going through chaos. But you can be much more you can push the chaos a lot further in person than you can online. It's much easier to read the emotion coming back and see how far you can push. So I guess the big difference is it can be a little bit more intensive and therefore you could probably get slightly more accelerated results. However, you know, there are methods and techniques that we teach where you can create that same interactivity online and you can get very, very close online, you know, by imagining that your screen is a window rather than a screen. We're looking at each other through a plane of glass and speaking to each other. There's lots of things. That's really interesting. And that's the bit that I struck. So almost my entire business is online. But certainly when I'm talking to groups, if I'm talking in person and something's not quite landing, even without anyone saying anything, you can feel there's a little bit of tension there or there's a slight energetic shift. And I think, no, I need to rephrase that. I need to tell another story. And I don't get that online. I'm not very good at that online. I can't quite read the room online yet. So I'd be interested to delve into that one day. So tell us more about how you teach online. So I know you've got an online program for educators. Is that for everybody or is it just for people entering education or have they got to be established? No, it's for anybody and everybody, even outside of the hairdressing industry. We tend to have people that mainly come from hairdressing and related industries.

So holistic therapies, beauty therapies, health and wellness therapies, things like that. It's people that are brand new to educating. It's people that are really seasoned educators, but just want to enhance their performance and get a little bit further. There's a lot of people that are stuck at the domestic level and they want to break out into an international level. And this kind of online coaching really helps them as well. There are also people that are really wanting to enhance their online offering so they can get a wider reach. And again, this really, really helps as well. So it's for anybody. And the thing is as well, we mustn't ever narrow this down to educators. So I often work with people and they'll end up saying, well, I don't do the education in my salon. I pass that over to my manager or somebody else. And I say, but do you lead the team? Are you a team leader? You know, do you lead your team? And they say, yes, of course. And leaders are teachers, Phil. The best leaders are teachers. And so if you're in any kind of leadership role, then getting your head around some teaching methods, some education method is going to help you communicate to that team much, much better. So even people that are not necessarily in a teaching role, but in a leadership role will come into these online things. I've just done a big, well, it's ongoing, actually, a big online event for a major global manufacturer. So we've been working together for about two years now, and we've put a lot of their information online now, creating interactive websites, interactive videos, the kind of videos where you can choose different pathways on the videos. And then we have regular get togethers for three hours once or twice a week. And again, we'll be working with people from Australia, Pacific, South America, North America, East, West Europe. And it's just an amazing opportunity to get so many different people in the same digital room at the same time to cross pollinate, share ideas. I think it's a fantastic innovation that we should definitely keep moving forward. And what's the program called and how do people find out more? So the program that you can access, that anyone can access is called GPS, which is short for Global Peak Performance Systems. I'm not sure of the origin of that title. I wasn't involved in the title. But you can go to bit.ly, B-I-T dot L-Y slash level up with Chris. All one word. B-I-T dot L-Y slash level up with Chris. I'm going to finish with three little short, sharp questions, which I didn't give you any prior knowledge of. What's the best thing about the salon industry? The ability to connect with people on an emotional level and help them feel better about themselves from the inside out. Love that. Best piece of advice that you've personally been given?

Don't take yourself or anything too seriously. Everything will change. And the final one, if you had a piece of advice for someone who wanted to follow in your footsteps, what would you want to pass on? Study. Study the process. It's not about the result. It's all about the process. The result comes at the end of the process. So study the process. Dedicate yourself to it. Superb. Thank you so much for that, Chris. I could carry on talking all day, but unfortunately time has beaten us. So I'm going to bid you farewell and hopefully we can see you on the podcast again soon. I would love that. Thank you very much, Phil. Great questions. Really enjoyed our conversation. One of the best ones I've done. Thank you very much. Superb. Thanks, Chris. So there we have it. Insights on salon education from, I don't know, anyone who knows better. I hope you enjoyed our chat. Please reach out. Let me know who you'd like to hear from. Phil at buildyoursalon.com. All of Chris's links will be in the show notes underneath this episode. Just seven short days until I'm coming in your eyes and ears again. And until then, take care. Sit down and see what's going on with the queen of salons. Hair, beauty, and more successful tips for business owners. All on Build Your Salon.