The Unstoppable Sue Davies: Inspiring Success in Salons

Hello, hello, hello, my salon friends. Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons, coming in your eyes and ears with another dose of wise old owl wisdom. But you lucky, lucky people, it's not my wisdom again. It's an interview week, you lucky people. And today I'm joined by the gorgeous Sue Davis. And Sue describes herself as an industry veteran. God knows what that makes me. She's worked mobile. She's had a home salon. She's worked right the way up through freelance to an award-winning salon owner. She's been an educator, a competition director, and she's a strong advocate for raising our salon industry standards. More recently, she's the CEO of Nobuno, which we're going to talk about during the interview. And very recently, she's the founder of the Salon Education Journal, which is a trade publication dedicated to continued education. There's so much we can talk to Sue about today. Let's get her on the show, shall we? Sue, welcome to the Build Your Salon Podcast. Thank you very much, Phil, and nice to be here. Now, the question on everyone's lips, of course, is you've done so much, worked your way through all those different models of business, created so many businesses along the way. Have you done all of that just because you don't want to work for anyone else? Quite a lot of it. When I had a corporate career, I did quite enjoy working in my corporate career, but I think I watched my husband have his business, and then as I started doing things, it just kept evolving that I just didn't work for anybody and just kept doing things myself. And now I don't know if I ever could. I find it quite difficult being told what to do now. Absolutely. I'm exactly the same. I think I'm actually unemployable and have been for quite a long time. So I'm always very interested to get people on the show who have a particular angle, obviously, but also what's really interesting with somebody like you is that you get to kind of look from above a little bit. You get to look down on the state of the industry and the state of education because you've got that slightly higher view from the people that you're mixing with and the kind of work that you're doing. So how are we doing as an industry? What are we doing well? Where are the struggles? What's going on? OK, so where are we doing well? I think that there are many, many people that are advancing their education and are taking their professionalism properly. That's how it should be taken. We are professionals. And I think there's there are a huge number of people in the industry that are kind of advocating for that and trying to push that forward, making sure that they are taking further qualifications and not just day like, you know, day type qualifications, but just taking big qualifications like their level fours and fives and even onto their level sevens.

And I think that that's got to be a way forward in the industry. Where we're struggling is I think that there's been, especially since the pandemic, there's been a surge into self-employment, which is fantastic. You know, like we're just saying, you know, self-employment for us has been, you know, part of our lives and is an amazing, amazing thing to have. But I think that so many people now are coming into it thinking that that's the way forward and they don't have any business understanding. They don't have necessarily the years of experience as a professional before they take that leap. And I think that we're now starting to see the impact of that, that there's across forums, across all the social media. There are the constant questions of how do I do this? How do I do that? This has happened. That's happened. And I think that there's just, you know, there's room for everybody, but we kind of need to understand that before we take those big steps into self-employment, business ownership, entrepreneurship, that we need to understand our craft and we need to understand how to run a business. And I think that is where we're missing. And just that, you know, that salons are like losing employees. They can't keep employees. They can't recruit because everyone wants to be self-employed. And that's just causing this sort of like, I don't know, it's a very weird deficit in the industry at the moment. And I think that you need to learn your craft, even though I sort of my first proper job in a salon, I was kind of self-employed back in the early 2000s, but I learned my craft from that salon owner who, and she was actually like quite a big industry name. And I learned so much from her and understanding how to run a business, also how not to run a business. And just like, and people are beginning to miss that step out. And it's starting to show is what I feel is the problem at the moment. I think you're absolutely right. I think it's been a huge shift because it used to be that people would cut their teeth in the salon and you'd go through that sometimes traditional model of apprenticeship. And then you'd work on the floor for two, three, five years, whatever, before you maybe went off to open your own business. And they're not doing that now, although they're going straight in. So what do you think has been the driver for that? Why are people cutting out that middle step? I just, I do think that during, I mean, the pandemic has just been, and I harp on about it a lot, but I do think it's, that's what shifted our industry. And I think it allowed people to be at home. And I think there was an element of people started doing it, maybe a few friends and family at home during COVID and people started realizing that, oh, I can, I can do this from here. Oh, there's flexibility.

Oh, I can run my own time. I can do all this stuff. But I think that there's, and I think that's possibly one of the biggest drivers. And I think also social media and the influences that are on Instagram and TikTok that just make running a business look really easy. And I think that that has a fairly big impact on especially the younger generation coming through, that they see that as their lifestyle and their, and as a lifestyle choice. It isn't a career choice. It's a lifestyle choice. And they're not necessarily thinking about their future careers. I think it's the perspective that's missing when I look at social media, because what people don't understand, or particularly our young people don't understand, is that's a fraction of 1% of people that are actually making a really good living just through social media and just through that kind of influencer model. And there's tens of thousands that are really struggling to get there, but they don't quite see that perspective, which I think is a real shame. So has that been the driver then? So in a nutshell, tell everybody what Nobuno is all about. So Nobuno kind of came about, it's been a long journey. It's about five years ago it started. I'd had this like light bulb moment of, you know, what if we could have something that was a bit like treat well or check a trade for the industry, but for education, not for trying to sell salon services, because trying to find education is a problem. And so it's taken a very long time because it got halted again by the pandemic. Everything got halted by the pandemic and it got shelved for a while, but it's now come back. We relaunched earlier this year and it's basically an education platform. It's got a full learning management system on there for education providers to be able to host their courses. And once their courses are hosted, then they go on our course directory where our invested learners will be able to come along, go through the course directory, search by different modality, search by provider, by area, so on. And yeah, so it's equivalent. Yeah. We hate saying it's like the treat well for training, but that's what started the idea was like treat well for training. And so that's what Nobuno is. Is it there because there is this deficit? Is it there literally to plug that gap because people aren't learning from salon owners along the way now? I think there's an element, there's an element because when it started, it wasn't about that, but I think since we went through like that, the difficult times of lockdown and stuff, I think it's become, there is a massive gap in our industry where you can go on to Google and say, you know, find me a brow course and you'll find something on some fairly well known sites that you might pay 15 or 20 pounds for. And within an hour, you can be a certified brow professional. And we know that that isn't the way to be a professional. We know that's not the way to a long-term career. So part of what we wanted to do was create a place where we look at the education providers,

we make sure they're certified, we make sure that they're insured, we make sure that they're professional, they abide by our code of practice. And therefore, then the learners come on and that, you know, they're going to find quality courses with quality education that there's, you know, there's a recourse. If they don't get what they deserve to have as part of their education, then the education providers be called into question. And that's part of what it was all about, was just trying to create somewhere that when you Google, find me an X whatever course, that Nobuno will come up as the first place. The same way as like most often, if you want to find a plumber or you want to find a beauty salon, you check a trade or, you know, that's what will come up onto Google's first searches. And that's where we want Nobuno to be. It's like, so as soon as people start Googling, there's an automatic platform for quality education. And how do you see that squared off with, so at the moment in the UK, we've got this massive drive towards further legislation and lots of red tape that people are going to have to abide by and lots of hoops that people are going to have to jump through. How do you square that with something like Nobuno? Do you think that's a better solution to be marketplace led rather than legislation led? Or is there a place for both? I think there's definitely a place for both. On Nobuno, of course, you can search for, you know, we have already got people on there that are going to be offering for level fours and fives. And so, you know, and those providers, you know, just by the fact that they're providing level four and five regulated qualification means that they are approved by our highest awarding bodies, which, you know, for us, I mean, that's everything you want is someone that's approved in that way. So it means that people, that education is what will be promoted across Nobuno and consequently across Google. As we grow and we get bigger, you know, people will be able to find that information as their first port of call rather than six months after they did their two day course that has made them an aesthetics practitioner in some kind of parallel universe. But hopefully it means that we will be able to put all of that in front of them so they can make a proper responsible choice about how they get educated and understanding as well that education shouldn't be £25. It shouldn't, if you want to be an aesthetics practitioner, that doesn't come at a cost of a couple of hundred pounds. That comes at the cost of thousands of pounds and years of experience. And we need to get that message across. So apart from, you know, being a course directory in a learning management system, a lot of what we want to do and what we do already is we have information available on there so that you can understand the proper routes into industry and the proper routes into being a professional.

I think in my mind, it comes all the way back down to a pricing problem in our industry in that we want people to be investing in their continued education. We want them to be, you know, overqualified, if anything, much rather than scratching around for 25 quid courses. But that, particularly if you're in a self-employed model and you don't have those economies of scale, it's really, really tricky as a self-employed person to find that money to invest. So I think that's what drives this kind of hunger for these cheap courses in that I can do three or four courses and get them done really quickly at a very low cost rather than actually doing a proper job. But of course, that wouldn't be a problem if we were all charging properly for our services in the first place. Where does that kind of security come from, do you think? I just, I don't know. I think it is. I think that they see their people down the road from them as like serious competition. And so you end up with that battle to fight to the bottom. And that's been ongoing for a very long time. And I think that's part of it. And I think people, currently, people are aware that there's a cost of living crisis and all that kind of stuff. And there, you know, and if you do have the premises, you are experiencing energy bills and increasing materials costs and everything that is making life more difficult. So you start looking for the cheaper version of everything and whether you're the public or whether you're a professional, you start looking for the cheaper version of something. And I think all the time that the consumers who come to us for our services are looking for cheaper services, there's always going to be someone that will go, okay, I'm not five pounds off. Okay, I'm not 50 pounds off that whatever course of treatments. And all the time that's happening, we just devalue ourselves. Yeah. And we've already got enough to deal with. We've like the, like, I know, I don't know if I'm sure it was with you. And I know I've been talking to Sam Marshall about this, about this whole thing of like unconscious demotion that we suffer as an industry anyway. And I think unless we actually start taking responsibility for building professional, you know, proper commercial businesses, you know, we are, this shouldn't be a hobby. This should be something where you are actually earning money to make a living. And we shouldn't feel bad about that. You know, you don't, you know, you see it across so many forms, don't you? Like, you know, if you were, if you worked for, you know, whatever supermarket, you'd go to work, and you'd go and earn, you know, 10 pounds an hour, 11 pounds an hour, 15 pounds an hour, whichever one you work for. And if you don't work, they're likely still going to pay you some holiday pay, or they're

going to still pay you some sick pay. And until we start understanding that, you know, if you're self-employed, you have to build that into your pricing. Yes. You know, if you want to take a holiday, you can't suddenly take six weeks a year out and expect that, you know, your 15 pound service is going to actually cover that because it's not. And I think that's the reality. And I think we just need to, you know, there's people like me, there's people like you, there's people like so many of the collaborative columnists that are working on magazine that, you know, we, we part of what I want to do with that is just to push that agenda to make people realise that you want to be a professional, you want to be a business owner, you need to listen and you need to understand that there's a different way forward from fighting to the bottom. Love it. And so we've talked a little bit about Nabuno, and I'm going to put all the links in the description of the podcast as well. So where did Salon Education Journal come along then? How does that add to the picture of that? How does that add to it? I don't know. Yeah. Maybe ask me in another three years once it's properly there. Honestly. Well, you know, are you one of the first people that I spoke to? And it's just been a mad, mad couple of months. And we knew when we were doing Nabuno, we wanted to get traction. We needed, you know, we need to promote it. And it's a really hard place to promote something because, again, you're trying to get money out of people's pockets. We don't want to compromise on what we're providing. So we're charging an appropriate price for what we're doing. And so, but we'd got to come out of beta sort of about August. It sort of fairly much got to the end of our beta phase. And we're like, OK, right, we really need to start pushing this now. And all of a sudden, you realize you're up against this brick wall of like, oh, actually, I don't think I can afford to pay £2,000 to advertise there. Or I can't afford to pay this. And, you know, and there's so many places that we couldn't afford to advertise and to market our business. And so we decided we were just going to do a very small digital publication that would be probably around 12 pages. But we just kept adding more value to it. And then it got to 16 pages and got to 20 pages. And then on the 6th of September, we were just like, OK, let's just let's just sit and review what we're doing and how we can do this and work out what we want to put in it and try and just keep it to something that's manageable, where we can kind of advertise Nabuno and we can talk about education. We can talk about all these exciting things, maybe get a couple of people to do some bits for us. And then Diane, who is my business partner with Nabuno, has got a whole history. Her whole career has been around sales, marketing, publications and all of that kind of stuff. And she's a graphic designer. She does tons of amazing things that I really can't do. And we were sitting chatting and all of a sudden it got to like 32 pages. And she's like, why don't we just make a trade publication? Because then we can advertise ourselves. We can, you know, provide something that's just not there. And I was really don't be that stupid.

That's a mad idea. And here we are. We just launched on the 1st of November. We have now 29 amazing people like you, Phil, that are helping us do this. There's no journalists in sight. And that's not to say journalists are bad people, but I think that they don't always understand the core of the industry. You know, they work alongside us. And, you know, some of the magazines do an amazing job. Some of them, people feel they do less of an amazing job. And, you know, and it's all down to personal choice. I've always supported all of the magazines. And I love, you know, I've always worked for all the magazines. But there is something missing. And I think that for me, that whole thing of like introductory education, continued education is so vital. And I think to give a platform for all of us to help people grow their businesses, grow their careers with, you know, I mean, as we were working out, when we said over 700 years of experience between us. And when you've got that level of experience and wisdom and people willing to share that, then it's a no brainer. And I'm just so I'm so pleased and so honoured that so many of you said yes. It's quite a unique publication. It has a very, very different vibe to anything else out there. And I do highly recommend it. There's a couple of pages in there that are particularly good. But I think what sets it apart in my mind is and what's happened through that collaborative process. What that's done is set the tone for the entire publication, because it doesn't feel like someone delivering wisdom from on high. It feels very collaborative. There we go. Gorgeous. This feels fantastic. I love the camera. It's beautiful. It doesn't feel like someone delivering wisdom from on high. And that's how I've always wanted to be. I never wanted to be that guru on a mountain handing down wisdom. I always wanted to be in the trenches with you. And the whole publication reeks of that, that collaborative. We're in it together. We're helping you along the way. And I think that's what that's the whole flavour of it, I think, is exactly what the industry needs at the moment, because I think that's what people respond to. I think that's why we turn to YouTube and social media for bits and pieces and business tips is because we want people that are on our level.

And I think that's what Salon Education Journal does so well. It is. And I think it is, you know, we're very, very aware it's very text heavy. And our launch edition, you know, we kind of did it. We're kind of seeing it as like a, I don't really like the word, but we're kind of seeing it as like a pilot of what we're going to bring forward in the coming issues. And we wanted to do it. It's like our test run, really, just to see how it lands, what it does, how it feels, because we want to make it something that the industry want to get behind. And it is at the moment, this, the first edition is text heavy, but then it should be, it's about education. This is about us learning. And there's an element of, it has to have all that information in there, because otherwise it isn't fit for the purpose that we created it. And we hope that going forward, it's just going to grow and get bigger and bigger. It's already, this first one was 108 pages print from cover to cover. And the next one, I think we're currently at 142 pages. So it is going to get bigger and it is going to get better. And there's going to be, you know, I mean, we've just, we've just taken on another collaborative columnist and like the collaborative columnist thing is fantastic because it's people that we either, I either know that are amazing within the industry and can help, or it's people that I've kind of come across and have been recommended to me that will cover a particular niche. And that's what we're trying to do is make sure that within all of the parts of our industry, whether that's hair, beauty, nails, lashes, whatever it is, that there's going to be someone talking to you. And it may be that in that specific niche, there's only one person talking to you, but nearly everybody within that magazine, especially within the business sections and the education and career section, there's going to be someone talking to you. And that you, you may find, you know, there's, you know, 29 columnists and then we put bits and pieces in as well. So you're probably going to have around about 35 articles in every single publication, but there's going to be probably at least 10 of those that speak to you, if not more, maybe even 30 of them will speak to you because everybody that's writing comes from a place of vast experience and years served on the floor, years served as coaches, years served as advocates. And, you know, we're there as your voice to help them, you know, to echo what it is that you're struggling with and to sort of like send back those words of encouragement and to help you push and go forward. I highly, highly recommend it and highly endorse it, not just because I'm in it, but, you know, even bearing in mind, I haven't worked in a salon for a really long time. I like to think I still don't know what's going on in the industry, but I, even I enjoyed almost every article spoke to me and I'm not even carrying out

service anymore. I think it's, I think it's a wonderful piece. So how about, how do you approach your, so your goal setting, your career, what you want to achieve? How do you, so you've got so many balls in the air. How do you decide what to work on next and what needs your attention? Do you know, it's, I do sometimes just sit and I, I've seemed to have gone through my career, just kind of seeing what each day brings. I'm, I always intend to sit and goal set and I'm not going to lie. I'm rubbish at it. I'm so bad. And I do, I kind of have, you know, like now I kind of can, I can see, I know what I'm doing for the next six months, probably. And beyond that, I do kind of, I don't like this. Actually, I just saw this quote the other day, Richard Branson quote, always say yes and work out how you're going to do it later. And I kind of, and I think that's kind of how my career has gone is I just say, yes, sometimes I say no. Cause sometimes there's an immediate, like that doesn't really not align with me in any way whatsoever. But if it sparks my interest, I'll usually say yes. And we'll deal with how I fit that in, you know, like the magazine, you know, like Diane, I have got so much on our plates, you know, you know, I mean, I've got my own podcast. I haven't recorded my podcast properly since about July because I've just been so busy. And, um, and so I kind of take on all this stuff and then suddenly go, I haven't got time to do all the other things. So something has to give, um, but it's kind of got me to where I am. And I don't know, I sort of, I feel like I'm in quite a good place at the moment. So I just kind of go with it. And I, and as I say, I mean, I know I've got, I know what I've got planned. You know, we know we want to make Sunland Education Journal be huge. We know we want to make Nobunoo be huge. And, and all the bits that I do as me, like my inspiring salon professional stuff, just kind of juggle on. And that kind of just keeps me feeling like I'm attached to the industry more. I think that's what I do it for is just to sort of feel like I'm still part of it. Because otherwise you get, I mean, I'm sure you find as well, is that once you come out of the salon is, it's quite, it's quite hard to stay in it in that way. And, you know, I mean, obviously with what you do, you're with salon owners all the time. And I stay in the forums, I'm admin on a couple of groups. And I don't think I'll ever, I don't ever want to be away from that because it sparks so much creativity in my head of how I can help them. The different things that I can do, maybe to help people move and progress. I think I managed to stay in touch just because I'm incredibly nosy. I love knowing what's going on under the hood. You know, I just want to know how people's businesses work and how their minds tick over and how they find inspiration.

And I, and I love our industry for that. Yeah. It is amazing that we are, we're so creative. We're just, we are such a creative industry. And, and I think that that is what drives us all forward is that creativity. It is where, where I get frustrated. And this is my personal rant now where I get frustrated though, is that creativity is so evident in our work. And it's just not when we get to the business bit, you know, we're doing business the same way. All right. Some of the services have changed by definition. We've got things available to us now that never were before, but the way we deliver service and the way we market our business, and even the way we recruit hasn't changed for generations. And I think that's a real shame. I think there's so much creativity we could be bringing into the business. And yet we don't. Fantastic. So that was amazing information. Very inspiring for everybody. I can't quite believe how time's got away with us. I could talk to you all day and I'm sure we wouldn't run out of topics. If people want to follow you, what's the best way for them to keep in touch? Best thing to do is if really Instagram is, is not well, I'm on there. I'm not, I'm not massive on there. I will tell the truth there. I'm, I sort of do it occasionally. Facebook is where you will usually find me. And you can find me just Sue Covington or inspiring salon professionals on there. You can also hit up Nabuno and some education journal. You can find my podcast on all the relevant platforms. Yeah. I'm kind of, I'm kind of a bit everywhere. I'm on threads. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm everywhere really, but I have got a link tree, which you'll find on my Facebook page. I will definitely put the link tree in. And that's much easier now. I just have two, I have too many.coms to, to share. It's fab, isn't it? Right. Quick fire questions. Just three of them. And I never give my guests notice of what these questions are going to be. Actually, that's not going to work in a couple of months because they'll have heard what the questions are. Anyway, but question number one, what is the best thing about the salon industry? It's the, the freedom to express yourself and to be able to create a career and a life that you want. If you do it the right way. Love it. Question number two, what is the best piece of advice you've ever received? Oh, someone actually personally given to me. Yeah. Well, maybe not perhaps something inspiring that you've read. Okay. I do think that the thing that drives me forward and it comes into my life on a regular basis and it's actually, we've got book club on some education journal and it's my first book on book

club. And it's a video by Steve Harvey called jump. And it came to me at a point, probably around when I was starting a Buno and I was like, Oh my God, do I do it? Don't I, don't I do it? And his philosophy and he talks about it. And he's, there's a video on YouTube you can find. And he's also got a book that you can join your book club for, um, called jump. And it's just about taking that leap and knowing that your purpose will find you. And when you take that leap, you're going to get, you're going to get a few knocks and bruises and things aren't always going to work perfectly, but you will land in your purpose. And it's taken me probably since I heard that was probably 2018. And I think now, finally I found my purpose. Excellent advice. And finally, if you were going to give a piece of advice to someone right at the beginning of their salon career, what would it be? Find the right course, find the right educator and pay the right money and do it right. Excellent. Beautiful. In a nutshell, a whole interview in a nutshell, right in that last sentence. Well done. Perfect. Thank you so much for joining me, Sue. I can't wait to get you back on the build your salon podcast again, because I'm sure we've got lots more to talk about. Oh, there's just so much, Phil, you know, there is. You know, I think I've been very well controlled. Fantastic. Take care, darling. Okay. Bye. So there we have it. My interview with Sue Davis. I hope you enjoyed it just as much as I did. Just seven short days until I'm coming in your eyes and ears again. 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.