Why Every Beauty Salon Needs A VIP Membership (Summer Pettengale interview)

Sharing her success story today is Summer Pettingale, who went from working checkouts in Tesco to salon ownership and opening her own training academy in under five years. She's about to launch her second membership, which fills me with joy. Let's get her on the show. Shall we? All on Build Your Salon? Hey, Summer, welcome to the Build Your Salon podcast. Hello. Thank you very much for having me. You are very welcome. I'm pleased we could finally make this happen 'cause we've been talking about it for long enough, I think. We have, we have. And so for people that don't know who you are, why don't you give us a little potted history, a little intro to who you are, where you're from and what brings you here today. Yeah. So I'm Summer. I am 28. I'm from Devizes, which actually isn't too far from you, is it, Phil? So It's not, no, we managed to meet up and have the most delicious cake in a really lovely coffee shop in Devizes, quite some time back. It was good. That was probably about two or three years ago now. It's been time, but yes, so based over in Devizes, I've had my salon for three years. This is my second salon within that time. And I've got my academy as well. And I've been doing beauty for about six years now. So that's where I'm at. Okay. So I'm kind of interested in, well, I'm always interested in the reasons why people set up their own businesses. Because let's face it, at the moment when recruitment's so tough, the easiest thing in the world for people to do is go out there and get a job with somebody else. But there's always something in an entrepreneur's life that just is a trigger for them to be doing their own thing instead. So I was wondering what that looked like for you. Yeah, so if I'm honest, I obviously, as you said, I started off on checkouts in Tesco and then developed into being a manager at Tesco. And then eventually thought, I do want to do something else. I want to do something a bit different. So I then went into recruitment again, very different. And I actually used to recruit for transport managers, HGV drivers, a completely different industry to what we're doing now. And then I was having my nails done. I loved having my nails done at the time, and I'd go into the salons, have them done, and I was never happy with them. I would always come home, redo them myself, and I thought, do you know what? I could just go and do a course just to do my own. So that's what I did. So I went and did a course just so that I could do my own nails. And then some of the girls in the office said, 'oh, can you do mine?' And then I started after work, the manager had gone home, doing the girls' nails in the office. And I thought, 'oh no, I could do this. I could do a bit more of this actually.' So did it at home, did it in my kitchen, just evenings and weekends around my recruitment job. And I just got to the point with recruitment that I was on call 24 hours a day every single day. I knew that I wanted to start having a child. So I knew that that wasn't going to be sustainable. There's no way that you can have a baby up at 3:00 AM and then a driver calling in sick at 4:00 AM and you have to get on the phone trying to sort that out for the next hour potentially. So I said to my partner, I was like, 'I really just don't want to do this anymore. I just want to do nails.' And he was like, 'well, go on then.' I was like, 'oh, okay.' So I did. So I went self-employed. I actually went back to Tesco in the meantime, so obviously I'd been there as a manager prior. I just went back just filling dairy in the mornings. I literally went in and put the GoGets on the shelf, 6:00 AM till 10:00 AM. I'd come home, I'd shower, and then I would go into somebody else's salon, self-employed, and I'd work all day doing beauty. So that's what got me into it. And then I then fell pregnant, and then decided that it was probably my time to open up my own salon and just have my full control. I could do what I wanted. I kind of want to pause you there though, because I think opening your own salon while you're pregnant is kind of a choice. Do you want to maybe talk me through that decision a little bit? Yeah. So I just needed stability and I think the salon that I was at prior, I said, 'I'm going on maternity leave, I'm happy to continue paying you like half of my chair rent to guarantee that I've got a spot to come back to.' And it was all just a little bit wishy-washy and I thought, 'I'm just going to take control of it myself.' So I was just browsing as you do. I was 10 days late with my little boy, so I sat on Rightmove, found a little scroll, and two weeks after I had him, I went and viewed my first salon that needed loads of work doing to it. And then just thought, 'let's just go for it. Why not?' Because I wasn't working already because I had a baby. So not only I could then go and try and renovate a salon, open up a business whilst I've got my baby that's sleeping at home, rather than trying to work a job and have a child and then open the salon. It felt like, 'I know this is crazy, but this is the right time to do it. Let's just go for it.' I love the story of how you kind of got to the salon world because I can see a lot of my own story in that. It was never supposed to be a career for me. It was always supposed to be something. In fact, it was a way for me to, I'd moved to a new area and it was a really good way of meeting lots and lots of people. But it was never supposed to be that thing, and then it kind of grew into that role. So that feels really familiar to me. And I'm also really interested when I talk to people who had a life and a career before salons. Because I think it brings a level of understanding, a level of commercial understanding that sometimes I think people that went straight into salons when they're 16 don't necessarily have. I think having worked in other roles and in other places, and I certainly want to come back to the recruitment conversation too. So you've opened the salon, and then at some stage you've also made a decision not to be on your own in that business, which is, let's face it, the trend these days is for everyone to have their own business of one. So what was that decision-making process like for you? So prior to opening my salon, I'd already become an educator and I'd only just started teaching before I fell pregnant. So I'd done a couple of courses and one of the girls on the course lived in Devizes. So then when I knew that I was opening in Devizes, I thought, 'I know exactly who I want on my team.' And I've been very much like that throughout my career, if I'm honest. I think that was why I was quite successful in recruitment, because I've seen what I've wanted and I've gone and got it, basically. So I just approached her and said, 'look, I'm going to be opening up a salon. It's a bomb. Come in, have a little look.' And I remember her walking around and thinking, 'are you mental? This is disgusting. It was awful.' It was really, really bad. And obviously at this point, I'm there with my newborn baby as well, saying, 'so we're going to do this and we're going to do that.' And she's like, 'okay.' But yeah, and she saw the vision as well and she came along with me on that. So it was just the two of us to start with. She was employed and self-employed, which again, we can go into because I don't feel that is something that works very well, having both elements in the salon. But yeah, so, and then she grew her clientele and then I added somebody else in. And then I quite quickly realised that that salon was just too small. We grew it quite quickly. And I had a client that owns the salon that I'm in now, and she kept saying to me, 'I'm going to retire.' And I said, 'okay.' A couple of months, 'no, I'm going to retire.' And I said, 'okay, well let me know when you do.' And eventually she said to me, 'Summer, I'm going to retire. Would you like the salon?' So I was like, 'yes.' So she was a completely different sort of business. She was very much into laser, that kind of thing. She retired, and then I took on her lease. And I now have a business partner as well, which is amazing. That was one of the best things that I've done. Yeah. So we now have the bigger studio together and there's seven of us in there. Yeah, it's, There's so much I want to unpack in that lot. Firstly, I guess my first big question that I have is that that period of growth is actually very rapid for you to go from kind of deciding you want a salon to taking on your first self-employed kind of employee and we'll unpack that a little bit as well, into growing into the second salon, now a team of seven. What do you think has been the hardest part of that very rapid growth journey? Learning to outsource? I would say you can't do it all. You really can't do it all yourself. And hence the business partner side of things as well. So Lily, she's incredible. We get on so well, it's almost like we're telepathic, we know exactly what the other person's thinking, but she's got her roles, I've got my roles and they work really well together. So having a business partner come in, that's really helpful. So she can take on an element of it because of that growth as well. But then things like a virtual assistant to be able to help with the social media element of things. I've been able to outsource that now. So I would say that was it, because I am a little bit of a control freak and I love it, and it's my baby and it's mine. So actually letting go and trusting other people to help you do that. That was probably the hardest challenge, I would say. Okay. I then I kind of want to loop around to the, you alluded to a little bit of tension around the employed, self-employed model. And I guess also I want to kind of weave into that now your confession that you're a control freak and I wonder whether that played a part in that decision-making process too? I would say so. I think, yeah, you do have that little bit more control and people are employed rather than self-employed in a good way. I think as well, having, so we still have self-employed people in my salon, so I've got two nurses that do all the aesthetics, and then I've got Andy that does bridal hair. So she does all of our bridal trials upstairs in a room in the salon. Absolutely fine. They keep to themselves, they do whatever they want. We've got a lovely team environment, but that's their business. That's fine. Whereas I feel like if you've got some employed staff doing nails and brows and that kind of thing, and then you've also got self-employed, as much as we very much shared clients as such, if I was busy, I would just hand it over to one of the other girls. There is that element of, 'no, this is mine,' more so from the self-employed team, I would say. This is my stuff, which is absolutely fine. Of course it is, but we can all share a bit of kitchen roll, if you know what I mean. So I would say it's much easier having a team all doing the same thing, knowing exactly the same standards, what we're working towards. And going back to, as you said, working in a different career prior to this. So with Tesco for example, they were very hot on structure, processes and the customer experience. I literally used to have a clipboard and I would walk the car park, I'd be checking if there's weeds in the car park, I would be checking, I would go through the whole store for an example, and I now apply that to my business. I'm thinking about, 'okay, so how easy is it to find us on the internet?' Are they looking at the reviews, the whole customer journey? Whereas someone that's self-employed probably doesn't think about that. They might do, but some of them in my experience don't. So it's like I try and drill into my girls, we need to be doing it from the very start all the way until after they've left, the follow-ups, that kind of stuff. Whereas, it's just, you can't have that with self-employed. I wouldn't say not in my experience anyway. I think when I've seen self-employment, I've seen it work, but I've never seen a mix work. I think if you've got an entire team of self-employed and you become much more a building where people are renting space, I think that's got a certain vibe to it. And you can still be friendly, still be part of a team, and I think that can work really well, but as soon as you care about that journey and you want that whole environment to be of a certain standard, I think that's really hard with self-employed. And certainly mixing the two together is a recipe for disaster, in my experience. I think your employed teams start to see the self-employed ones going home when they want to and things like that, and they forget that they've got paid holiday and you're investing in their training and all those things. And it does cause a lot of tension. The other way around as well. We had a moment where the self-employed almost thought that the employed would just clean up after them. For example. It's like, 'no, no, no, I haven't employed them for you to boss them around to do stuff. I've employed them so that we can do our thing.' So yeah. And then I kind of, so paint me a picture of how the business is at the moment. So we've got a team of seven. We've got some self-employed in there, but in, well, not unrelated, but in quite separate businesses it sounds like. So what services are you offering now? And also I want to kind of bring in how the Academy fits into your week too. Yeah, fab. So I've got myself and my business partner, Lily. Then we do pretty much all the treatments in the sense of nails, brows, facial massage, pedicures, that kind of stuff. And then I've got two girls that are employed. They again do all of those sorts of things. So they are doing the same treatments. And then we've got the three self-employed team as well. And then regards to the Academy, the Academy slots in, if I'm honest, around everything else that we've got going on, because we have, we've got a lovely premises and it's much bigger than the one before, but I'm, again, I'm thinking, do I need more? Because we are growing and we have got that team now. I've got three nail desks for an example. If I want to run a course, I'm going to need those desks. So I have to do it on a day that the girls aren't in. Or I make the course smaller so that we can use two of the desks and one of the girls is on the other one. So logistics at the moment, I'm still trying to get there with that. Or we just open up another premises, but I'm trying to stop myself. And then you talked a little bit about your business partner Lily, and I wondered how you decided who was responsible for what, but also I think prior to that, where was the need for a business partner? Where did that come from? Was that someone that approached you? Was it something you were actively looking for? No, if I'm honest, I knew that I was going to be taking on this new salon anyway. And I said to Lily, she'd only just joined us. She was primarily massage to start with. And she said to me, 'do you have anywhere that I could rent a space?' And I said, 'oh yeah, you could, in my salon actually.' Anyway, so it wasn't that much longer. And I said, 'I'm looking at this new space. Did you want to come and have a little look with me?' Because the other member of the team, they'd already seen it. We'd already been there. We actually had a power cut once, someone had cut through some wires and we had to go and work in this salon, which was great. So the other member of the team, they already knew what that looked like. So I brought Lily down with me and we're having a little look around. We went to the Rowdy Cow down the road, we had some ice cream, and I just said to her, 'would you want to do it with me?' She was like, 'yeah.' And that was it. So that was the extent of it, if I'm honest. There was no planning in that sense. But me and Lily, it's a little bit of a funny situation. We've known each other for a really long time, since she was nine years old. So she is my ex-boyfriend's sister. But we get on so well and it is lovely 'cause we get on with all the family and that sort of stuff, but yeah, we just knew that we could work quite well together. She is very much numbers and that element of the business. I would say she's good at operations. I'm great at customer service. So that's how our roles have fallen. And it just works really well together. Okay. I want to kind of loop back and talk about recruitment a little bit. Because you've managed to build an employed team in an economy, in a time and a space when actually that's kind of against the trend a little bit. So I wanted to just touch on your experience with building an employed team, and also whether any of your previous recruitment experience had kind of helped along the way. To an extent, yes. I would say the interview process, understanding personality types and that kind of thing, I would say that helps from what I was looking for prior in recruitment, obviously very different. It was transport logistics and the beauty industry, completely different ball game. But I would say the main thing actually is because I've had the Academy, bar one person that's recently joined us, I have recruited everyone that I have trained. So I've seen their talent in my courses and said, 'I want you.' And then they've joined the team. So anyone that I've had is, it's been through that way. And then my most recent recruit, she came in and had her, so she had Chrome on her nails. She texted us to say the chrome had chipped off because she'd been using lots of oils. And I thought, 'okay, that's not the problem,' but okay. And for some reason my brain went to that she was a car mechanic. I don't know why. I just thought that her hands would be covered in black oil. So she came in and I said, 'so what do you do? What do you do with oil?' She was like, 'I'm a massage therapist.' I was like, 'of course. I don't know why my brain doesn't go to that in the first place.' Anyway, she's lovely. So lovely. And has worked in some of the local spas and salons around us. And I said to her, 'I don't necessarily have a job for you right now, but I would love to have you on my team at some point. Would that be something you'd be interested in?' So we went and had a coffee and I just thought, 'I'm going to make her a job.' So we have. Cool. Now we need to talk about memberships because if I don't talk about memberships every month, I'll die. So tell me about your journey with salon memberships, where we're up to and what's on the horizon for you. Yeah, so I tried to touch on memberships a long time ago when I first opened the business actually. And that's when I sat down with you initially and I remember bringing you my membership and showing it to you. I had two. And you were like, 'it's so busy. There is so much going on here. You really need to simplify it.' And I was like, 'okay, fine.' And actually I launched it anyway and I only had one person sign up. So listen to your uncle Phil 'cause he knows what you're talking about. I don't just make this up. I had one person and then I scrapped it. I thought, 'I'm not going to do that right now.' Again, the logistics around having an employed team and self-employed team, that was quite hard. Because as I said, we did share clients, people would go to all of us and you can't take the income and then they go with somebody else. So I thought, 'no, we'll just park it for now.' Then obviously, we've now got our employed team, so it is something that I'm going to be launching further. In regards to facials, we've just partnered with Dermalogica, which is very exciting. So we're going to be launching a membership around that. But I knew that I needed to do something differently in the business with what I was doing because being sat behind a desk or a massage bed, I can't grow the business anymore. And we've got to that point now that I'm on a tipping point really. So I was like, 'okay, what can I do differently to get me to where I need to be?' And I thought, 'I'm going to use a membership to narrow down my clients and bring that exclusivity to me and my time.' Not from a big-headed way, of course, nothing like that at all. But I have to allocate my time to other things now. And I'm very much a 'yes' person in the sense of, 'yes, of course I can fit you in. Yes, I'll put you in here,' when actually that time was already booked out for something else that I needed to do for me, for example. So that's what I've done. I've launched a membership and it is a nail membership. It comes in two tiers. So I've got three weekly clients that come for me for nails, and then I've got four weekly clients that come for me for nails. It is just nails. I've simplified it as you said, it is literally, 'this is what you get,' and it is just that they get the nails done. It's all the added extra fluffy bits that are lovely. But primarily you get your nails done three weeks or four weeks and it's now set up by a direct debit. No one else can book in with me. And you have to book in slightly differently on the system. And that's that. And it works. I've had two people out of all of my clients say no, because I think that's the biggest thing initially. You think, 'oh gosh, I'm upping my prices and I'm changing completely the way that people pay for things. Everyone's going to leave me,' but actually all of them were very happy to go, 'yeah, that's fine.' The only ones that haven't was actually somebody that really surprised me. She didn't want the price increase, which actually it turned out to be about one pound eighty a month, so it really wasn't much at all. So she just had her nails removed and that was that, and that was absolutely fine. And the other person, she spends a lot of time in another country, so it just wouldn't have worked for her logistically. So she now goes to one of the other girls in the salon, which is brilliant because now any new clients that book are now filling the diary of my new member of staff. So it's worked in both ways, if I'm honest. It's isolated my time as well as being able to push the load onto the staff where I need it to be. Yeah, exactly that. Wonderful. It's been good. It's been a good transition for sure. So what would you say to maybe a beauty salon owner who's kind of on the fence about doing a membership who thinks it sounds like a lot of hassle or they're worried their clients won't go for it? What would your message be for them? Just go for it. Absolutely. Just do it and see what the response is 'cause I guarantee it'll be better than what you think it's going to be. And I think there's something around bravery in that too. I think it's, at the end of the day, much as we love our businesses and much as it's very important to us, the world's not going to spin out of orbit if you launch a membership and nobody signs up. It is okay to just be brave sometimes and throw your hat in the ring and see what happens. Is there anything now that we've got, I don't particularly want to look at the first version of memberships that was too complicated and didn't really land, but we've got a much more successful membership. Is there anything now that you wish you'd known before you launched that membership? Any lessons from that one? I think the thing that I've got at the moment is, for example, I had a client text me yesterday saying, 'oh, I never booked my next appointment, can you get me in?' And I can't. I have no space to be able to do that. So yeah, and I think being clearer with the clients, these are now the expectations. I'm allowing you more freedom in booking later on into the year. They can book right up until Christmas if they want to. Whereas my booking app will only allow clients to book three, four months in advance, but I need them to be working like that. And mostly they do. A lot of the time my clients are booked three, four months in advance. But they have to now, there isn't really a wiggle room around, 'oh, that's okay, you can just go with one of the girls.' 'Cause it does need to be you, you're doing it with me. So yeah, I would say just communication on that sense and being a little bit more on it right from the get-go. How many appointments have we got booked? Always booking a couple ahead. So we are not ever in that situation. But I've been trying to be quite good with them in the sense of, I sent them a welcome email on the first day that direct debit went out. Or obviously just over two weeks in now, so I'll send them another one just like, 'how are things going? You've got your appointments booked.' And obviously that's just a learning from yesterday as well. So yeah, I would say that's probably the only sort of thing really. But other than that it's been a really smooth transition. I would think about recording some video content around that. So rather than people getting emails perhaps link to a video with you talking them through that process and explaining how the membership works a little bit. People don't read a lot of stuff. Which is annoying. But you explaining that expectation I think would come across really well. Because you're obviously comfortable on video anyway, so I would think about perhaps creating a little series of videos that walks people through the first couple of months of their membership. Yeah. Nice. Okay. And then we've got skin membership on the horizon. Where have you got to with that? What's the thinking that's behind that one? At the minute we're just getting all of the staff trained, they are still going off and doing all their training, that kind of thing. So I need to see exactly what the demand is, what facials are being booked, mostly that kind of thing so that I can then put something together. But again, I want it to be really simple. I want it to be a skin transformation membership rather than necessarily being, 'you can book this, this, this, this, and this.' It's just, 'this is your skin transformation, this is what you're going to be paying for.' We'll tailor that based on what we think your needs are for an example. Something along that line. I think that's a really smart idea and I've seen it work a few different directions. I think there is a place for a fluffy facial membership in some salons. I think it's actually quite a nice thing just to have a client that takes some time for themselves and, alright, we're not doing too much with the actives and we're not going to do any huge transformations with it. But in terms of just a bit of self-care, I think that can look really lovely. I think a transformation membership is great and I love the idea that you are the expert and you are deciding with the client what that journey needs to look like to get the best results for them rather than them choosing from a menu of stuff. The other way I've seen it work though is where the transformation happens on a pay as you go basis, and then we move them onto more of a maintenance membership, which can be a lot simpler. And tends to, rather than choosing from a list of 15 different directions we could take a transformation in, it's really going to be one of maybe two or three different directions on a maintenance membership. So that can work really nicely too. Yeah, that's nice. So looking forward a little bit then, what does the next 12 months look like for Flourish? I grow my team in the sense of just them individually. I'm really just honing in a little bit more on the systems, the processes, because I think opening and growing so quickly, I was a little bit all over the place with just letting things happen, whereas now I'm so laser-focused that I'm like, 'okay, we have to be doing those team meetings. Is everyone's reviews booked in? What are they wanting to achieve? What do we want to achieve?' And just really going for that. I had a member of staff not too long ago that we don't have anymore, but she was almost kept afloat by other people until I really dove into the numbers and then thought, 'well actually she's not doing as well as I thought.' So what do we need to now put in place? And then a resignation that happened. But yeah, so that's what I'm focusing on, I would say for the next 12 months, just really trying to grow the team that I've got and get those systems and stuff into place. That whole performance management thing, I find that that's my jam, that I find really fascinating and really interesting and I love that. I mean, I don't love that that was the outcome for you. But I love that realisation that actually the figures never lie. We can kind of kid ourselves sometimes and try and see the best in people and see that people, and sometimes we imagine that they're doing better than they are. Sometimes there's a little bit of, I don't think it's necessarily conscious, but I think there's a little bit of hidden behaviour going on. I used to have this a lot with one particular stylist who springs to mind who was really good at looking busy. And she always had this kind of frantic energy around her. Like she was really rushed and she used to stamp up and down the salon and everything was done in a hurry. And actually I don't think she knew she was doing it, but that was to hide the fact that actually her column was not that busy at all. So I think sometimes we fall for some of those stories, but as soon as you start to take the lid off some of those reports that we're all paying for on our bloody salon software. I think it's, there's nowhere to hide then when we start dealing with the facts and it takes the emotion away as well, because I think the problem in our industry is that we're people-pleasers. That's how we're successful is by keeping people happy. But you can't really do that with team members. It's not about, I mean, of course we want a nice place for them to work, but it's ultimately around performance. And I think when we start looking at the figures, it takes all of that emotion out of the conversation. It's not you attacking her or her feeling defensive. It's about, 'this is what you did last week.' There's nowhere to hide behind that, really. Yeah. And I'm a very typical beauty business owner and say, 'I'm not a numbers person at all,' but you sort of have to be, you can't shy away from it. So yeah, when I did look into it and I thought, 'actually no, we need to address something here.' And I'm glad I did. But yeah, so that's what the next 12 months looks like, I would say. And I think as well, just remembering the fact that this isn't just for fun. This isn't just a hobby, this is an actual business. And if we can take elements from the way that Tesco do things or the way that recruitment did things and run it like a business. Like you said, you take the emotion out of it, then we can push forwards even further. And I think there's something very, that process of systemisation and bringing processes in, it's quite liberating in a lot of ways to not have to think about some of these things anymore because that's just the way we do things around here. I think that actually frees you up to, in some ways, be more creative and more invested in other areas of the business because that's taken care of. It's automated or whatever. Wonderful. Now I always say when people come onto the Build Your Salon podcast, in exchange for your time, you're allowed a shameless plug. So why don't you tell us what's your plug, bearing in mind, most of my listeners aren't going to be living in Devizes, but certainly on the academy side, I'm sure there'll be some interest, so plug away. Yeah, absolutely. So I would definitely say the Academy. I'm going to be launching a summer sale. It's actually the first one that I'm going to be doing. I'm going to try it, see how it goes. But for me, the Academy always has that slight natural dip over the school holidays. So yeah, we're going to go for a little summer sale in the school holidays. And I am somebody that absolutely loves coming to your salon as well. So not only do I have people come to me, I am then limited on space. I normally do it in quite small numbers anyway. We have about six students max on a course, but I love coming to other people's salons. So I've driven down to Exeter, I've got the train two hours away, all the local salons in the area. So if anyone needs staff training for everyone to be singing off the same hymn sheet, it's worked really well with other salons that I've worked with. And I'll come in and train your staff, so yeah. Wonderful. And we always finish these interview episodes with my three favourite questions. What is the best bit of advice that you've ever been given? There is so much to choose from. I have actually been thinking about this, but rather than necessarily a bit of advice, a book that I read, The Secret. I don't know if you've heard it. Okay. Absolutely love it. I'm very much a mindset person. And my grandma a little while ago, bless her, she gave me The Secret and said, 'read it.' And I was like, 'okay.' So yeah, go and read The Secret. I would say that's one of my biggest bits of advice that I've been given. Yes. And if you were going to leave a piece of advice behind for someone following in your footsteps, what might that look like? Go for it. Because it always seems scarier than actually what it is. I love that, that kind of 'be brave, jump and the net will appear,' I think is a really lovely phrase. It's a whole thing, isn't it, of entrepreneurs are somebody that jumps out of the aeroplane and builds a parachute as you go down. Go do it. It's tiring though, isn't it? It's all that parachute building. My goodness. It does take its toll or perhaps I'm just getting old. And finally, what is the best thing, especially given that you've had a history of working in different areas? What's the best thing about working in the salon industry? I think it's just a lovely environment. A client can come into you and they're telling you that they've just got engaged or they're telling you that they're going for a divorce on the other hand. And actually just being that people person, it doesn't feel like work. You have genuine friendships and relationships. So yeah, I would say that's the best thing. The relationships that you can build, the networking events, all that kind of thing. I love it. Honestly, salon business owners are some of my favourite people in the world. Just to hang out with, even though I don't drink anymore and my God, they know how to drink. Yeah. And if people want to keep in touch with you, Summer, what is the best way? I would probably say Instagram, Flourish Beauty Academy on Instagram. I've got two pages. I've got my salon page and I've got the Academy page. But Academy page, it says, where is that? And I will be putting all of Summer's links in the episode description underneath this video. Thank you so much for your time today, Summer. It's been an absolute joy and I'm so pleased we managed to finally get an episode on the calendar. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much. So there we have it. My conversation with Summer. What do you think? Why not reach out and let me know and why not also reach out to my email address, scrolling at the bottom of the screen, if you'd like to be a guest on a future episode of the Build Your Salon podcast. If salon memberships are on your radar, please head over to queenofmemberships.com, all one word, queenofmemberships.com for access to my salon, memberships made easy training. I would love to help you build out your salon membership and take your business to the next stage. Just a few short days until I'm coming all over the airwaves with another dose of my wise wisdom. And until then, take care.