Welcome to the Salon Owner’s Podcast, Phorest FM Episode 14. Co-hosted by Killian Vigna and Zoé Bélisle-Springer, this show is a mix of interviews with industry thought-leaders, roundups of our most recent salon owners marketing tips & tricks, all the latest in and around Phorest and what upcoming webinars you can join. Phorest FM is produced every Monday morning for your enjoyment with a cup of coffee on your day off.

Phorest FM Episode 14

Everyone likes to feel appreciated, and your salon clients are obviously no exception. A good way to show them appreciation is by organising some kind of event or client night in your salon. We have a few different tips and ideas for you in this episode. Another discussed topic is especially relevant now, with Valentine’s Day just around the corner… When staff from one salon are dating, it can be a tricky situation the owner. In fact, many salon owners don’t always know how to approach it. That’s why we have Valerie Delforge, founder and CEO of Delforge + Co., return to our show to explain her thoughts behind the proper way to deal with this type of thing.

Related:

Audio


Leave a Rating & Review: https://bit.ly/phorestfm

Transcript

Killian Vigna: Welcome to the Phorest FM Podcast, episode 14. I’m your host Killian Vigna and today I’m joined by …

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Zoe Belisle-Springer, your co-host.

Killian Vigna: In this episode of Phorest FM, we’re going to kick off the show with our event executive, who is here to share some pointers on hosting salon events for your clients. We’ll announce the first round of trade shows you can expect to see Phorest Salon Software attending in 2017. We’re bringing back one of our special guest bloggers to talk about the tricky topic that is employees dating in the workplace. And, as always, we top off the show with our upcoming Phorest Academy webinars. This podcast is produced every Monday morning for your enjoyment with a cup of coffee on your day off. Now, let’s get into the show.

So we’re going to kick off the show today with a question that’s come in a couple of times. So a lot of salon owners are wondering how they can start rewarding their clients, especially the most loyal clients. You’re talking like kind of having events in salons and stuff, and we thought, what better person to explain it than our own events executive, Sinead Carroll. So welcome to the show, Sinead, it’s your first time on the show as well.

Sinead Carroll: Thank you, Killian. Thank you, Zoe.

Killian Vigna: You’ve been dying to get involved.

Sinead Carroll: I know.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Not too nervous?

Killian Vigna: She’s more calm than we are. So I suppose, you know yourself, getting salon owners in, so like open-day events after hours and things like those. So, I suppose, give it to us, you’ve organized events more than us, what is the best place to start?

Sinead Carroll: So as you said when you’re organizing your salon event. Well, first of all, they’re a great idea to actually decide to host them if you have the capability and time to do it. They’re great for a number of reasons, probably the most prominent one is the to thank your loyal clients, just to give something back to them. But also sometimes you just hit a lull in the month where you want to boost your retails sales, so client events are great for that. So you can choose to do yours on a Wednesday, Thursday evening and that will give you the boost mid-month maybe. Also, it’s an opportunity to get new clients in. So say if you got some of your regular clients to come and incentivized them to bring a friend or bring a work colleague or bring someone with them.

Killian Vigna: So it would be like the refer a friend campaigns that you usually do?

Sinead Carroll: Yeah. So you could offer your current clients maybe some free card points or something like that if they were to bring someone in. Especially if you have it during the week, probably the best day of the week to have it would be a Wednesday or Thursday evening, provided that you don’t open late those nights because then obviously you’d be disrupting your regular clients’ appointments.

Killian Vigna: So is that because, again, you want them kind of in the quieter periods of the day? Like you wouldn’t do it on a Saturday when you’re going to be up against the walls.

Sinead Carroll: No, no. You’d probably do it on maybe a Wednesday, Thursday evening from 6-8 pm. They’re kind of the prime times because it’s later in the week so people will be more receptive to go out in the evenings or maybe go out for a glass of wine. Earlier in the week, you’re not going to get anyone in.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, because no one wants to go out on a Monday night and be wrecked for the entire week.

Sinead Carroll: No.

Killian Vigna: Exactly, yeah.

Sinead Carroll: And when you have it after work, as well, maybe like some of your regular clients say in the office, “Oh hey guys, do you want to come?” So then they automatically get two or three extra people to come along to your event. So then when it comes to who you’re actually going to invite, there’s a few ways of looking at it. You can give a general invite to all of your client base and send out an SMS or email campaign to all of them. But, more often than not, it’d probably be better to target it. So you could run a report on Phorest, see who your top spenders are, then send a personalized SMS or email out to them and invite them to come along on the evening, bring work colleagues, bring friends.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Would you have a limit of people? Would you have like a plus one or plus two? Would that kind of be the regular?

Sinead Carroll: You’d invite the person themselves and there would be no limit as to how many they can bring along. You want as many people there as possible-

Killian Vigna: As long as they all fit in.

Sinead Carroll: Exactly.

Killian Vigna: 500 people in a small little room.

Sinead Carroll: There’s generally a drop off rate. Even if you get 100 people are going to come, half them probably won’t. So it’s better to over-invite then it is under-invite. You could also consider inviting some local press or maybe some influencers, maybe they’ll do a Snapchat story about your evening.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: And how do you go about that? Do you have to send out a press release or do you just contact them if you have contacts?

Sinead Carroll: Yeah. Contacts are probably the best. If you have time, a press release would be good, but often it’s kind of who you know. You can shoot off all the press releases in the world, but sometimes they don’t get seen. If you have a client who’s maybe big on social media or something – like someone comes in to get their eyebrows done, you could ask her to come along (or him), or whatever to come along to it. And then automatically it’ll be out there on Snapchat because there are so many influencers out on Snapchat these days. Other than that, you could just invite local press, get some to come along, take a few pics if you know anyone.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah.

Killian Vigna: And like that with the local press, very important not to overlook it because it’s all well and good to kind of push big, but your local area, that’s where the majority of your clients are going to come from. So if you can get in that local paper…

Sinead Carroll: Yeah. The local paper, you’d love to be on the lower image or something like that, but the local paper often is the best method of getting it out there.

Killian Vigna: Well you have to think of it realistically, like are you going to have clients who are going to travel 20 miles for you? I don’t know, you might.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Every two, three weeks.

Killian Vigna: Every two or three weeks, yeah. But the majority of your clients are going to be from a five-mile radius or something like that. So really emphasize on the local press there.

Sinead Carroll: Yeah they’re probably going to be working in the area. A lot of people with salons, they might not necessarily live there, but they’d be using salons close to their workplace or something like that.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: I know I do that personally.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, exactly.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: [crosstalk 00:05:29]

Sinead Carroll: Slipping off at lunch time?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, pretty much.

Sinead Carroll: But another thing to note is to make sure all your team are onboard with it. So you call a team meeting once you decide you’re going to have this event, maybe call all your employees together, explain what’s going on, why you’re doing it, have them all in-the-know, get them all onboard with it and bought into it. Because there’s nothing worse than a client hearing about it and saying to their stylist, “Oh, you hear about the event?” And they’re like, “Oh, I don’t know ask someone else.” So you should encourage them to encourage their clients to come along to the event and it’d be nice to relate to people on a different level as opposed to client and customer or client and stylist. So it will be outside of the kind of normal setting that they interact in, so it’s a nice change. It’s nice to connect with people in that way.

Killian Vigna: So what sort of events would you recommend for the everyday salon owner? Because we know we’ve talked ourselves about events like stocks, so get people to come in and try samples. That’d be a good one for if you wanted to buy new stock for your salon but you weren’t sure if your clients were going to buy it.  Have a little sample day, demo test day. So it could be like a VIP night where they get to go home, try the products, and let you know then if they’re going to use it. If they’re going to use it, then you can order them in. If it didn’t really hit, then you know not to…

Zoe Belisle-Springer: You know not to move forward with it, yeah.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, exactly. Don’t buy unnecessary stock. But are there any other kinds of events that you’d recommend?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Because you mentioned the reward one where it’s like a VIP kind of event and I suppose maybe you’d have some bites and some drink or…

Sinead Carroll: Yeah, often when people think of events they think, “Oh, it’s going to cost me so much money.” But it’s actually not. Like a few nibbles like cheese and wine, a few bottles of wine and a few nibbles. And then goody bag is always a great thing to take away because people love getting swag from events. So even if it was just like a little bag with some samples and a personalized thank you note for coming to the event, that kind of thing. But to go back to your question about what the theme of the event could be, it could be anything from the launch of a new line of products that they had got in or, as you said, if they wanted to do some research about a product to see would people use it, would people buy it… It could be that if you were hairdressers and you were expanding into the beauty industry – if you were opening kind of like another element…

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Like a branch?

Sinead Carroll: Yeah, another element to the business, another branch. There doesn’t always have to be a reason for an event, everyone loves to go to an event.

Killian Vigna: But it is, like, you also do need to provide some sort of value to the clients coming because it’s all well and good hosting an event, but if the event is all me, me, me, come along and have a look how great the salon is. So you need that little reciprocation I suppose.

Sinead Carroll: You’re throwing this event and if they get there and realize it’s kind of an exclusive event and they were targeted and chosen, they’ll feel special. Like you’re going to give them wine, cheese. You’re going to hang with them, mix some music, even just an iPod. Just a nice evening, you know?

Killian Vigna: Yeah. Like you said it’s basically just wine, cheese, and just getting to know your clients for that hour or those two hours where they’re not sitting in an appointment chair with a blow dryer going.

Sinead Carroll: Yeah.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: What I had once in Montreal was pretty cool. This salon I used to go to, one of the guys was an artist and he had an exhibition in the salon that night and it was just really, really fun, there were a few nibbles, you could drink maybe like one glass of wine per person or something like that. But you could actually enjoy just that one-day pop-up exhibition of art and stuff.

Sinead Carroll: Yeah, that’s cool.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: And it was really, really nice and it was kind of refreshing just to see art in a completely different environment than you’d usually see it.

Sinead Carroll: Yeah, different.

Killian Vigna: Yeah.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: That was a quite good turn-out, actually. People chatted, stylists and clients and stuff like that. It was really cool.

Sinead Carroll: Yeah, because I don’t think they get the opportunity to do that.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah.

Sinead Carroll: It’s just kind of a different … You’re still in the salon but it’s kind of a different dynamic.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly.

Sinead Carroll: Like I know you probably get along really well with your clients, but to speak to them and mingle with them on a social basis is often a nice, welcome break.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, definitely.

Killian Vigna: Which is where the glasses of wine come in perfect because everyone’s so much more chatty when they’ve had a glass or two.

So our special guest blogger this week is Valerie Delforg, and Valerie Delforg is no stranger. I think we had her back in episode two, Zoe, didn’t we?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Something like that.

Killian Vigna: And at the time she was talking about the ins and outs of writing a salon spa procedure manual or, “SOP” manual.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yes, exactly, S-O-P.

Killian Vigna: So without further adieu, Valerie is back today and she’s here to talk about a topic that I suppose you’re going to see a lot more of now that we’re coming up to Valentine’s Day, and that’s two of your salon employees are dating, now what do we do? So, Valerie, I suppose we’ll send it off to you on that one because I suppose you’re the professional at this, aren’t you?

Valerie Delforge: Yeah, I’ve managed… Good morning.  I have managed quite a lot of people so you do come across these kinds of situations where you have to definitely have some kind of procedure in place, not necessarily a written procedure, but a procedure in your head on how you’re going to deal with these situations.

Killian Vigna: Yeah and I suppose it’s not always going to be a problem or an issue for all salon owners, but it’s more along the lines of you just need to keep an eye out for this going on, isn’t it?

Valerie Delforge: Yeah, it certainly is. To be quite honest, the issue that you can foresee purely if the dating doesn’t go right, unfortunately. If it goes well, then it normally doesn’t really affect anyone. But it depends on the dynamic of the team and this is something that whether it goes well or not, actually dynamic of the team will change when someone is dating someone else. So that’s probably the only thing you really need to watch out when you have employees dating.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: So basically, would you have it written down in the handbook that you give a new employee or do you just kind of go along the lines of if it happens, then you deal with it then?

Valerie Delforge: Yeah, I think it’s… There are companies, especially the bigger companies, so corporates et cetera, that probably will have something written down. So, you know, none of this is allowed, no dating in the workplace allowed, et cetera. Personally, I think it just gives a bad vibe really. Who wants to see that in the employee handbook? It’s not necessarily something that you want to put forwards.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah.

Killian Vigna: Yeah.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: You’d assume it’s common sense.

Valerie Delforge: But definitely have a… Sorry?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: You’d assume it’s common sense.

Valerie Delforge: Yeah, it’s common sense and I think that, for me, as soon you have people dating, it’s the energy of the team that changes. And it also depends on who’s dating who – isn’t it. You could have, you know, I’ve had a lovely hairdresser who was just a Casanova, used to date everyone that came in. And to the team, it was well-known in the team environment. And after a while, people get a bit fed-up of these antics. You know, they got a little bit. So that’s what I mean by the team dynamic. So what is it that we can do to ensure that it doesn’t affect each of the team members, basically.

Killian Vigna: And also, you don’t want to bring too much attention to it first thing either because it’s like that, once you mention it they’re going to go really out of their then to…

Valerie Delforge: Yeah, absolutely. I mean it’s not, as far as I’m concerned, it’s none of my business really what they want to get up to in their own time. As long as it doesn’t affect me and the business and people around, then I don’t mind. It’s absolutely fine. But it can’t have an affect on the team or the customers.

Killian Vigna: So you’re saying that to you, it wouldn’t really phase you, it wouldn’t kind of bother you too much. But if it was becoming an issue, do you have procedures or anything that you go through?

Valerie Delforge: Yeah, so I’ve come up with a way to appropriate the love. The L-O-V-E procedure then that’s not written down, it’s much more about what you need to kind of do for something like that when it happens. So the first one that I said, the “L” is let it go, just really see how it develops, what is it. Is it a romance that is blossoming really nicely? Is the Casanova who’s dating everybody and we know what’s going to happen next? But just let it go and see how it goes. For me, as long as it’s not affecting the customers, what is said to the customers? You know because in environments like that, especially with the regulars, there’s always a bit of gossiping going on.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Of course.

Valerie Delforge: So we just need to be a bit careful on what’s being said and definitely keep an eye on what’s happening. And then I’ve put the “O” for open the conversation. I want them, whoever’s dating, to be aware that I know, I think that’s the main thing.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, that it’s no secret.

Valerie Delforge: Yeah, I think it just clears out the communication between us. They need to know where I stand. If there’s no procedures, I don’t want to have a procedure about it. However, I’m just going to let you know that I know and if you need to come to me for anything, just come to me. Just don’t affect the customers, I don’t want to see anything, any kissing going on on the shop floor, I don’t know, anything that’s not going to be-

Killian Vigna: Turning your salon into a soap opera.

Valerie Delforge: Yeah, I don’t want anything unprofessional, I want something that’s … It’s absolutely fine, I’m happy with it, but just make sure you keep professional at all times. And that to me is really important to have the conversation because I think they need to be aware that you’re aware. That’s quite key, that really is quite key. And also it irons out a little bit of, you know, you get to know a bit more about what the intentions are in some way or another.

Killian Vigna: It keeps you up to date without being-

Valerie Delforge: Maybe I’m being a bit momsy on that. Sorry?

Killian Vigna: Yeah, it kind of keeps you up to date with what’s going on without being too nosy.

Valerie Delforge: Yeah, that’s it, I think that’s it. I was going to say maybe I’m being a bit momsy on that, but it’s not coming across that way. It’s much more kind of a warning of let’s keep it professional, I’m happy that you’re together but make sure it doesn’t affect anything. So they kind of know that I know, I think that’s important.

Killian Vigna: Yeah.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: And then the third point was “vent if needed.”

Valerie Delforge: Yes. I mean, for me, it’s important that you can have an open door policy as far as anything is concerned. Any communication, any difficulties or even non-difficulties. It’s important that your staff knows that they can come to you for anything. And in this situation, if you have, let’s say in the case of the person who like, at one point or another you know you’d have a conversation with a victim. So it just allows everyone to discuss how they feel, what’s going on. I had a case at one point where I had to give a couple of weeks off to the girl in question who was really, really upset and then I had to change the rotor because they didn’t want to be in the same kind of, you know, rotor. I mean that’s, in some ways you kind of think, “Do I really have to do this? Surely they’re adults.” But on the other hand, I think if the business is not going to suffer and it makes everyone feel better, then why not? Why can’t I accommodate to make sure that it suits everybody?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, so it really depends on what kind of manager you are and what kind of way you want to manage your business, I suppose.

Valerie Delforge: Yeah, it does, it does. But I think in the dating, it can be a big issue, it really can and I think we need to be aware that at the end of the day we’re dealing with people, for people, and there’s going to be emotions, there’s going to be emotions going on and flying around. So can we limit the damage by changing the shifts, you allowed the girl to be a lot more comfortable in what she’s doing. Why not?

Killian Vigna: I really like the idea of the whole “vent if needed” because, especially we see a lot of companies and businesses now that have the whole attitude of “you leave your personal life at home.” And that’s all well and good, but when you’re dating someone that you’re working with too, knowing that your boss or your manager is giving you that option that you can go in and talk to them because like, it’s only going to take a couple of minutes but it could solve so much stuff that could be buried down below.

Valerie Delforge: It’s exactly that, it’s exactly that. Those couple of minutes can allow you to actually avoid so many difficult situations further along the line. Because had I left this girl on the same rotor as the man she was dating, what am I going to find in two, three, four weeks down the line? How big is the issue? How are my customers going to be affected? That was kind of the ultimate aim in my head: how much is it going to affect my customers? So really I avoided the situation quite rapidly and it was quite easy and everyone was happier.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yes.

Killian Vigna: So we’ve seen… Sorry?

Valerie Delforge: No, I think it’s important for… it’s kind of like you want to be involved without being too involved in it.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah.

Killian Vigna: Exactly.

Valerie Delforge: It’s a little bit like the judge in the middle trying to assess the situation, let them vent if they need and then come back to a solution really.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, so just to recap on the first three stages. You’ve got the whole “let it go” so all right, you’re two staff members are dating, leave it to go as is, it’s not affecting your business or your staff. Then there’s the opening conversation, let the couple know that they can approach you and I suppose, keep you up to date. Vent if needed. So if it does start to go to sour or anything like that. And then finally you have the last step which is “E” which is – establish disciplinary. So if the relationship doesn’t go too well, do you have anything in place? Like you said, you have the two staff members working on separate rotors, just a while. I suppose that’s your cool down period, is it?

Valerie Delforge: Yeah, I mean there was a Facebook comment actually-

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yes, I saw that. I was going to say that.

Valerie Delforge: Yeah, so I thought I’d respond to it today rather than answer that. The disciplinary, I need to be clear about this, is not necessarily because they’ve been dating, it’s much more about the attitude that you might have. So it’s not necessarily you’ve been dating, I’m going to put you on disciplinary because it’s not working. It’s much more with disciplining on the attitude that they have. So I’ll give you an example, I had another case where the girl took it really, really badly when it ended. We had the conversation, we do all the venting. I couldn’t change the rotor, it was too early so she had to stay there. But she became extremely rude to people, including the customers. She was just obviously very frustrated with everything. But it gets to the stage where I’m going to have one conversation, two conversations, and then the third time, we will go for disciplinary procedure. Not necessarily because of the dating, but because of the consequences-

Killian Vigna: The attitude.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah.

Valerie Delforge: Of what happened. So this is what I mean by disciplinary is much more about what consequences have we had from the dating. If it is attitude, I can put you on disciplinary for attitude, absolutely. Or maybe she’s constantly late because she’s crying in the morning, I don’t know, but you can put disciplinary in place for the consequences, not necessarily for the actual dating if that makes sense.

Killian Vigna: Yeah and, like you said, you don’t want to have to put procedures in, but at the same time, you don’t want to be babysitting your staff.

Valerie Delforge: That’s it. I think I’m not a babysitter. It is a professional environment. Even though there’s gossiping, even though we know that things happen. If I’m not in the salon I know things are going to happen. A little gossiping, especially from customers, they’re worse than the staff, they want to know everything. So yes, it’s going to happen, but we need to make sure that we keep the professional eye. So if the attitude is wrong, then yes, I will start disciplinary. Why not? I can’t handle a team that’s being moody for X, Y, and Z. But to be honest with you, that’s for extreme cases. I don’t think I’ve ever had to do that. I’ve never, ever had to do that. I’ve had to put … I have a system on disciplinary which is three strikes, I’m going to have a conversation with you first, then a second one, and then the third time I will put you on disciplinary. And usually by the second conversation, they either leave or they stay and they change their attitude. So you can avoid disciplinary, no one wants to do disciplinary action.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, and like-

Valerie Delforge: It’s lengthy, it’s not the way forward. But, in extreme cases, I would say that you could deal with the attitude.

Killian Vigna: Yeah and like you say in the blog here, you’ve just mentioned it. You don’t want to have to be disciplinary, no one wants to have to put these procedures in place, and you especially don’t want to have to interfere in a relationship. You said it in the blog, you love going to the wedding after. So it is something that you hope to see blossom, but at the end of the day, you have to have something for yourself because you’re a salon owner. Just to finish off the blog here, like the four principles, like you said. Love. It’s couldn’t be any easier. Let it go. Open the Conversation. Vent if needed. And establish disciplinary. And the beauty of this one as well is it works in with your SOP manual that we were talking about in your last blog too.

Valerie Delforge: Yes, yes. Absolutely. Although, as I said, written procedure is not necessarily something you want to give to staff. This LOVE procedure, you can have it for yourself and you can just put it on the side for yourself. Your own SOP manual. Just, you know, what do I do if two people are dating? How is it going to affect me? How is it going to affect the business, my customers, and the people around? And then what do I need to do. So your own procedure, but I’ve never had to put it in front of staff saying you can’t date. Because I think it’s human nature: if you say to someone you can’t date, they will, won’t they?

Killian Vigna: Exactly.

Valerie Delforge: Somebody will do something, so I don’t want to have that.

Killian Vigna: So Valerie, that’s been absolutely fantastic. I hope after this now some salon owners will be able to identify their Casanovas in time for tomorrow. It is tomorrow, isn’t it?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yes, it is tomorrow.

Killian Vigna: Tuesday, tomorrow. And I suppose yeah, keep an eye on their Casanovas.

Valerie Delforge: Yeah, it’s maybe that that’s the issue to be quite honest. I have gone to a couple of weddings out of people dating so it’s nice, human nature is lovely. You know, happy Valentine to everyone.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: You too.

Killian Vigna: Thanks so much, Valerie. As always, it’s a pleasure.

Valerie Delforge: Thank you very much.

Killian Vigna: All the best.

Just on that one then, we’re hosting a Phorest V-Day event.

Sinead Carroll: Love is going to be in there tomorrow.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, so this is basically inside Phorest. It’s not like anything with clients or anything.

Killian Vigna: No, not with clients. So basically it’s the Phorest staff themselves, but Alex and Sinead have been working with this, as well as Aoife. Basically, it’s kind of – we’re guardian angels to our stuff.

Sinead Carroll: No, we’re secret angels.

Killian Vigna: Oh, we’re secret angels. But like, it’s a little idea [crosstalk 00:26:12]. But it’s an idea that you could use in your own salon, that you could do with your staff. So I suppose you want to shed some light onto it being as I already got it wrong, twice.

Sinead Carroll: So basically the whole idea of it is it’s meant to be simple, it’s meant to be cost effective, it’s not meant to cost you a load of money. It’s about the little things that you can do for a person throughout the day that actually enhances their life, I suppose-

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Puts a smile on their face.

Sinead Carroll: Yeah, puts a smile, like a smile costs nothing. So basically what we did is last week Aoife put everyone’s name into an online kind of draw thing, and everyone got a person. So this person is your human, and you’re their secret angel. So tomorrow, over the course of the day, people are going to be showering love and affection, and gifts I guess, onto their people. So it’s at nine o’clock tomorrow morning and some of the suggested things we had to do would be even to buy like a coffee and do a Spotify playlist. That’s what Killian is planning on doing.

Killian Vigna: Don’t give it away.

Sinead Carroll: I don’t think he’s listening.

Killian Vigna: Of course he’s listening.

Sinead Carroll: Or like, you know, the more creative the better. Decorate someone’s desk. It’s going to be a lot of fun and we’re going to film it so maybe you’ll be able to have a look at us. So it’s basically just about having fun, it’s just the simple things that you can do to bring a smile to someone’s face is what we said.

Killian Vigna: So are we going to have to do up a LOVE procedure doc after this as well then?

Sinead Carroll: I don’t know.

Killian Vigna: Some people can get carried away with this, I have to say. Yeah so moving on from that, finally, the last section of the event is trade shows. Where can you find Phorest in 2017?

Sinead Carroll: Trade Show mania has hit, so in two weeks’ time it is … What day is today?

Killian Vigna: So today is the 13th.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: The 13th.

Sinead Carroll: So the 13th.

Killian Vigna: So roughly two weeks, yeah.

Sinead Carroll: Yeah, about two weeks. We’re in London and we’re in Manchester, so the Pro-Beauty show is on Excel in London, so we’ll be there the 26th and the 27th of February. Pro-hair in Manchester Central, also on the same days-

Killian Vigna: Same days.

Sinead Carroll: Yeah, same days so Sunday and Monday. So we’re splitting forces, so you’ll be able to catch us in both places, whichever one is most convenient for you.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, exactly, and we’ll have the demo of the feature, the online reputation manager feature up and running at those trade shows.

Sinead Carroll: Yeah we’re planning on, I suppose, launching it out at those shows.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: So if you’re interested in that definitely come along and I think you can get tickets off-

Sinead Carroll: Yeah, you can get tickets online on their website, and they’re still offering some discounts, I think, for them. So if you log onto their website, you’ll be able to get the best price for them.

Killian Vigna: And for, I suppose, for that one it’s for clients and non-clients, but we have members from the Grow team and from the sales team. So if you have any questions that you wanted to find out about Phorest, now’s the time to build up those questions and I suppose hammer the guys with your questions because that’s what they’re there for. Five of them each, loads.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Five and five.

Killian Vigna: Cool. Then just to wrap it all, we’re going to move on to upcoming webinars. So Zoe, I’m just pulling open this tab here for you now.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So today we have the much-liked client retention masterclass webinar going on at 3 pm UK/Ireland time. That’s 10 am US Eastern time, so in New York kind of area. So that’s going on today. Wednesday we also have your online reputation webinar that is basically going to be the second one that we do on that day and it’s also at 3 pm UK/Ireland, 10 am US Eastern time. So that’s what’s coming up this week. So we’ve got two webinars: one today and one on Wednesday. And the next one will be Facebook, but that’s only going to be next week, so.

Killian Vigna: And as always those webinars are open to everyone. You can register by going to the Facebook Phorest salon software Facebook page.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yes, exactly and then-

Killian Vigna: And then the events section-

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Events section. Yeah exactly.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, cool. So just to recap the show today, a lot about kind of Valentine’s and love. We had the how to deal with the Casanovas in your salon, that was with Valerie Delforg. Or if there are any couples dating or anything like that. We had a little fun Phorest V-Day or Valentine’s, V-Day that you could try with your own staff. It doesn’t take a whole lot, it’s very inexpensive, but it’s a bit of fun, bit of a laugh. You might need your LOVE procedure stuff after that. The trade shows, there will be more on the upcoming trade shows again next week and then the webinars-

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah there’s actually a blog as well on the Phorest blog mentioning both trade shows and the links to the tickets so check that out there.

Killian Vigna: So just type in “Phorest blog” and that should pop up straight away. So as always, thanks very much for tuning in today and if you want to get involved in the show, you can leave us a review or some feedback on iTunes or Podbean or whatever podcast you’re using-

Zoe Belisle-Springer: And we’ll be more than happy to get back to you.

Killian Vigna: Exactly. So as always, thanks very much for tuning in. I’m Killian.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: I’m Zoe.

Killian Vigna: And there’s Sinead.

Sinead Carroll: And I’m Sinead.

Killian Vigna: Just kind of sitting there looking.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: So we’ll catch you next week, have a great one.

Killian Vigna: All the best.

Thanks for reading!

#LetsGrow


Catch up on the previous Phorest FM episode, or check out the next Phorest FM episode!

Note: Phorest FM is designed to be heard, not read. We encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion which may not translate itself on the page. Podcast transcription by Rev.com