In the stock market world, they always talk of two different markets; The BULL market and the BEAR market. The Bull market is when things are thriving, growing and everything is increasing in value. The Bear market is the downturn, when things are depreciating and loosing value. The intresting thing is that following every Bear market comes the Bull market. The service industry (salons included) have been in a Bear market since the beginning of Covid, we are all fully aware of this. BUT,...

The person that runs our front desk (aka F.O.H) is one of the most important roles in our business and therefore one of the most important hires we can make. So, why is it so difficult to find this person? When I first started looking for this person for my salon it was like a revolving door of "hires & fires". Infact it took 3 years before I finally hired the ROCK STAR I needed! So how did I do it? What changed and how did this person finally find me? If you have been struggling to...

There's hundreds of ways we can increase our business revenue. We could come up with some cool "grass roots" marketing. We could up our social media game and post multiple times a day on multiple platforms. We could find a new "rock star" stylist with a full-book of guests. But although these are all possibilities, they all take a significant amount of time before we see the new guests in our chair and the money in our bank account. What I want to talk about today is not only the fastest...

Overwhelm is a living, breathing thing when running a business. It doesn't matter how well we plan and schedule our day or week, we are often met with "fires" that surprise us and need our attention. So how do we overcome this? How can we insure that everything that needs to get done is happening? How can we free ourselves and create more hours in our day? Is the answer to bring in a salon manager and if so how much will this cost? Or do we really need a business partner and if this is...

I'm yet to find the "perfect" team (mine included). Some have come close, but there is always at least one team member who always seems to have the wrong attitude. They never seem, excited or inspired to be in the salon.  Not that you're thinking of firing them, but you just wish that each day didn't seem like such a challenge. Some of you may be reading this and thinking, thats HALF of my team! This wouldn't surprise me either, we have had a thoroughly crap 2 years in the salon world and...

Is this going to be the year you finally build the business you originally set-out to build? Is this going to be the year you finally hit the revenue that gives you the life you've always wanted? Will this be the year your team maximize their efforts and create the careers they've always wanted? If the answer is YES then there is something that MUST happen in your business. Your team MUST realize that THEY are in-control of their own destiny! They MUST realize they are are capable of...

SPECIAL EPISODE ALERT!!! Nicole and I were interviewed for The Hair Game Podcast last week, which is based out of Los Angeles. This ended up being so much fun and a super interesting conversation...   Salon Business Consultants David & Nicole Barnett @highperformancestylist went from hairstylists to salon owners, and have learned a ton along the way. They have taken their knowledge of salon business building and focused on helping other salon owners achieve more success.  This...

Any way you cut it, the last 12 months has been an experience filled with lessons. Lessons about business, lessons about ourselves, lessons about government, lessons about medicine, lessons about human nature. I'm here to review and talk to you about the business lessons. It would be very easy to just dismiss the last year and just focus on moving on- "NEXT"! But, just like any event we organize or attend, the "gold" is in sitting down, once it's all said and done and reviewing what we...

If you've been considering "skipping" your Holiday Open House for your guests this year, let me suggest you reconsider. An open house is a party, so while it's all about celebration, bubbles & bites, it's also an opportunity for us to increase revenue, expand our client base and even set us up for a busy January and February. Any event that is related to or takes place in our business has to have a focus on making money or expanding our business. In this episode I give you three...

Do you sometimes feel like the nagging parent because you seem to be always asking your team to post on social?! You know how important it is to post, they know how important it is to post but trying to get them to be consistent is an uphill battle! Social media is a part of being in business today, whether you are an owner or a stylist behind the chair. So in this episode I'm going to give you my strategy that will not only give your stylist all the ideas and content they need but also...

Have you thought of selling your business? What is your salon really worth? How do you even put a price or value on it? Most people think of selling their business when they can no longer stand going into it!  This is the WRONG time to start thinking about selling it! You need a plan and you need enough time to execute this plan so you can maximise the price you deserve for your business. This is something I've had first hand experience with since I sold my salon 5 years ago and and was...

It's usually me asking all the questions on The HPS Podcast, but today I want to share an interview that Nicole and I were asked to do for my friend, Dom Lehanes show, The How To Cut It Podcast. It was a refreshing change to have the shoe on the other foot as Dom asks us about the current state of the hair industry, some of the biggest challenges and of course can, "We Don't Do Saturdays" really work? Also, it's a rare chance to hear the thoughts and opinions of my wife and business partner...

I came across a fairly random post in one the hairdresser Facebook groups recently that caught my attention. It described how this stylist had managed to create his perfect lifestyle and balance between his career and personal life. He told a story about being able to cancel a full day of clients, reschedule them and take the day off to attend a festival, without a single complaint and received a bunch of flowers from one of them as a thank you!  Not only that..... but after wearing many...

If you listened to Episode 96 of The High Performance Stylist Podcast, you heard me RAVE about the amazing experience I had buying a new pair of sneakers at Fleet Feet. Well, I couldn't stop without digging a little deeper into the training and pursuit of excellence that Fleet Feet clearly stand for in their company. My digging led me to todays guest. Alex Tallman is the Senior Manager of Retail Experience at Fleet Feet, which basically means he sets and maintains the standards for the...

It's the 100th EPISODE so you know it's going to be a BIG ONE. That's all I'm saying. Take a listen.... Have a blessed day, David. Connect with the High Performance Stylist Website: www.joinhps.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/highperformancestylistcoaching      @highperformancestylistcoaching Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/highperformancestylist/ @highperformancestylist Email address: mailto:[email protected]  

Ep99: This Could Change Your Business Forever.   Disruption is a word that gets thrown around a lot in business these days. ​ But over the last 30 years I've been in hairdressing I think there has only been 2 or 3 things that have truly disrupted the industry. ​ These have usually been products such as Keratin treatments and Olaplex that allows us a result we couldn't achieve before or it's been a technique that has never been seen before. ​ I believe that what I'm about to...

This is a special episode because it's a peak behind the curtain of a LIVE recording of a coaching session I did in our Private HPS Platinum Group. Are you a salon owner that has additional "space" in your salon? Perhaps you have one or two beauty rooms or maybe an education space? Have these rooms been vacant recently? Maybe you feel they don't really cost you anything because they are "included" in your salon space, but is this the truth? How much money could you potentially making...

So many salon owners say to me, "I'd love to hire an assistant/apprentice, but I just can't afford to". Every apprentice I've ever hired has immediatley been an asset to my business and not an expense. There is a very clear way you can make sure that whether you have one apprentice or four apprentices, they are all making the business money right from day one and not costing you a penny! In this episode I give you my 4 step process to not only insuring your apprentice is profitable, but...

At this stage of my career, its a rare occurrence that my "Mind is BLOWN" by the standard of customer service I receive from a business or service. However, I'm delighted to say that it happened to me last week and it was in the most unlikely of places. It wasn't in a Four Seasons Hotel, it wasn't flying Business Class with Virgin Atlantic. It wasn't even in one of the incredible salons that I know so well. I was buying a pair of sneakers in a sports store! Now you may be thinking,...

One of the most dramatic changes we have seen over the last couple of years has been the way we receive education. Covid, of course, has played a large part in this process, forcing everyone who wants to teach a class of any description to reconfigure it to a "virtual" class. But what about the apprenticeship program? Will they become a a thing of the past or is there an "evolution" of the classic apprenticeship that could be an even better and more impactful method? In this episode...

Ep94: Without This, You're On The Fast-Track To Failure!   At the time of this recording it's HALF-TIME! It's halfway through the year and the perfect time to re-set and refocus on the essential practices that need to happen in our business everyday. The one thing that every successful business has in common is they understand the core principles and practice them (without fail) everyday. So.... this episode is a welcomed reminder of a key practice that is the gateway to...

There is one specific type of salon that is the most difficult in the world to manage. The type of salon I'm talking about is a "quiet one"! We all go through those days or occasional weeks when we have quiet times. This is completely normal because business always happens in cycles of being busier and then quieter. We have busier days and quieter days every week and we have busier months and quieter months every year. But knowing this doesn't help with the frustration of having team...

This is a shorter than usual episode but it has a very important message! When we think about the time and energy we put into our team we tend to put the majority of energy into the team members that are under performing. The team members that don't have the right work ethic and don't have a great attitude, tend to drain our time and efforts while the team members that are great performers ( our MVP'S) miss out. This episode is a reminder of the importance to acknowledge the players that...

Do you sometimes feel EXHAUSTED with building your business. Do you get overwhelmed with all the moving pieces and the sheer mountain of tasks you need to get to each week? You have a clear vision of what you're trying to create but you spend so much time putting out day to day fires it makes you wonder if it's ever going to happen..... If this sounds familiar, you are not a lone! The most common complaint I hear from business owners is there just isn't enough hours in the day, my plate...