Featuring, Marti Nelson *podcast below* Being held hostage and recruiting qualified service providers continues to be two of the top challenges salon owners face today. Often I hear owners say that they just want to hire someone with a clientele! In a perfect world, a stylist would arrive at my salon with a full clientele. She’d be a model employee, eager to work, and with a great attitude. I’m sure that this could happen; I just know that it is not the reality in most cases! Within the Summit Salon systems, we teach that the answer to the challenge of how best to find these ideal employees is to “grow your own”. Stylists who have reached the top and have little room for growth learn that the secret to increasing their sales by $10,000 to $12,000 annually is to become an educator. This type of intentional, systematic training solves recruitment and hiring issues and creates opportunities for top stylists to become leaders and educators in your business. By implementing a step-by-step program designed to take a brand new stylist to top performance in a matter of weeks, an owner may for the first time feel a sense of freedom. One salon owner tracked the stylists who had been through the Associate Program and discovered that although each experienced varying levels of success, nine new stylists had grown by 57 percent collectively during the first year of business. Although thousands of stylists have purchased the Associate Program materials and implemented the program, for many the pivotal point of success was when they attended the Associate Program training. Misty and Meredith from Salon LaPage, Denton, Texas illustrate this well. Both come from a background of working in an independent contract salon. When owner Daphne Arrington built a new salon, she went to The Summit and converted solely to commission. Both successful stylists took the risk to become employees. They attended Associate Program training  and decided to do it “by the book”. Meredith had already been training, but found her training was unorganized, confusing, and stressful. Almost a year later she said, “I feel like a true mentor! I have learned to multitask and communicate well.” Misty remarked that the difference in her business since becoming an educator was amazing. Her paychecks every two weeks have increased by $1,000! Both agreed that the most difficult part of the program was changing booking times to 45 minutes with no finishing time. This has forced them to use their associates to their full capacity. Meredith admitted that making this change pushed her give up control, which ultimately made her become a better educator. She found that the associate spent less time standing around, making it possible to have far more services going on at the same time. Misty realized that it helped her associate think on her feet and it improved timing. Misty and Meredith agreed that educating the next generation of hairstylists is a huge commitment. Meredith said, “Educating causes your heart and your mind to be in a different place. Growing others is the most important thing now!” They are both making more money, but more importantly, investing in the lives of others. What do you think?