Make a difference to those impacted by cancer and domestic violence by hosting your own Dining For Change get together during this October’s Breast Cancer and Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Dining For Change is a fun, easy way to bring fellow professionals together in small groups across the country - to network, share, enjoy one another’s company - and raise a bit of money for a good cause. We invite you to:

• Host a get together with your fellow professionals, co-workers, business associates and/or clients
• Encourage others to host their own get togethers as part of a national network of professionals
• Promote your support of Dining For Change and the industry related charities it benefits
• Support the good work of Look Good…Feel Better programs for cancer patients and the Salons Against Domestic Abuse Fund’s CUT IT OUT program.

“NCA’s Dining for Change is a grassroots fundraising initiative based on a new and growing model of localized charitable work called ‘giving circles’—groups of individuals networked with other small groups to make a difference,” explains NCA President Mark Goodman. “Our members told us they wanted more opportunities to connect locally and NCA’s Dining for Change created that venue on their terms. We are so delighted that so many industry professionals accepted our dinner invitation. I am so proud of our NCA members, who by joining together on a local basis, raised more than $75,000 for our community service programs. That’s the power of camaraderie!”

In March, beauty professionals across the country gathered at hundreds of dinners on a local level to network, share and enjoy one another’s company as part of the National Cosmetology Association’s (NCA) first Dining for Change. They also raised $75,000 for those impacted by breast cancer, domestic abuse and natural disasters. NCA members and industry pros, from manufacturers and distributors, to salon owners, stylists, educators and future professionals, met at elegant dinners, picnics, potlucks, pizza parties and more, while benefiting The Salons Against Domestic Abuse/CUT IT OUT, Look Good…Feel Better and the NCA Disaster Relief Fund. To continue the local camaraderie, NCA has designated October 2009 for the next get-togethers and encourages industry pros to hold their traditional breast cancer and domestic violence awareness/fundraising events under the Dining for Change banner.

Be the change that you want to see in our world. Please join us and be a Dining For Change host in October.

To register as a local host in your area or to make an individual donation, click here. For photos from our first event, click here!

Social networking (i.e. myspace, facebook and other sites) seems to be the hottest thing on the internet these days.  Created to allow people to “connect” online with friends, colleagues and like minded individuals, social networking sites are growing exponentially (facebook, the largest of such sites now has over 200 million users worldwide). 

Knowing that our members highly value professional networking, NCA has created a group on facebook which has quickly grown into the largest of the closed* beauty group in the USA with over 2000 participants.  The NCA discussion board on facebook offers a great way for members to share ideas with one another.  The sites ability to show videos, links and photos is a great way to personalize the site for members.

*requires user to request entry by the group’s administrators. This is different then most groups on facebook which allow anyone to join. 

Just two weeks ago we also created an NCA account with Twitter, the fastest growing social networking site.  And although we still have our training wheels on and don’t expect to do our first “tweet” (Twitter speak for “comment”) until next week, we’re enjoying the uniqueness of twitters “140 character” rule that restricts posts to short sentences or phrases. 

Our goal with a presence on both of these sites is to provide new ways for NCA members to connect and learn.  We hope that you will use Twitter and/or facebook to keep in touch with NCA – as well as with thousands of other salon and spa professionals and manufacturer and distributors around the country (make that the world!).  We also hope that members will help us to find new ways to provide member value through these sites.

To learn more, go to facebook.com and twitter.com.  To join the growing NCA facebook group, simply enter “National Cosmetology Association” in the search bar on the facebook home page and “request to join group.”  To follow NCA on Twitter, search for NCANOW and click on the “follow” link.

To share your thoughts on these and other social networking opportunities, post your comments here or email NCA’s Gordon Miller at gmiller@ncacares.org.

By Gordon Miller

As featured in the Beauty Industry Report’s (BIR) January 2009 edition

Imagine a $600 million infusion of cash into salons in 2009! How about $1.8 billion in new retail sales? Impossible you say? Read on!

The National Cosmetology Association (NCA) strongly believes that the difference between successful salons and those who continue to struggle is the high profits associated with retail sales. However, this important message—that retail can create both wealth and opportunity for increased education, staff retention, client loyalty and personal gain—is not getting through to the independent salons that are the foundation of our industry.

With the support of manufacturers and distributors, we can challenge more than 50,000 salons—25% of the US market—to increase their retail sales by just $50 a day. The math is astounding…just $50 per day in new retail sales translates to $12,500 per year in new sales for one salon. That’s an industry gain of over $600 million in new retail sales. If we up the ante by adding $50 per day per stylist per salon, that means $1.8 billion in new sales industry-wide! Those are daunting but achievable numbers, when we take a new grassroots approach to a very old problem.

With help from you and other industry partners, NCA will create:

1. An industry-wide marketing campaign promoting the ultimate value of retail to salon owners and professionals—economic empowerment through increased profitability. It will include monthly inserts into leading publications plus a significant online presence focused on inspiring salons to use growth in retail as a key to beating the recession and building long-term success.
2. A grassroots “Salon Retailers Network” promoting role models or retail heroes to share real world examples to inspire success. Importantly, our goal is to support incremental growth in a way that serves the needs of salons and professionals at various levels of experience and commitment.
3. A robust online repository of easy-to-use proven tools, benchmarks and best-practice systems to help build retail success.
4. A grassroots support system of education, inspiration and motivation using existing industry events to help create and sustain momentum through a series of live workshops, panels and case studies directly connected to print and online resources, we’ll to bring to life the power of retail profits to change salons for the better.

Our industry is very much at the crossroads. We can do nothing and watch companies and salons fail. We can do things as they’ve always been done and stand by as record numbers of traditional salons and their employees transition to booth renters and into kitchens. Or we can act—together—to create a new understanding of how to do business in a changing economy.

NCA invites you to be part of a massive, concerted national effort to inspire change in how salons view their relationship with the bottles that too often gather dust on the shelf.  We will launch our program this spring at IBS New York and in American Salon. Join the NCA and its national campaign to inspire change in salons.

Gordon Miller is Executive Director of the National Cosmetology Association. Reach him at 312-673-5868 or gmiller@ncacares.org.

For more information on BIR subscriptions, go to www.bironline.com.

New 2008 Professional Salon Industry Study Now Available - Salon Industry grows 2.8% in 2008!

Professional Consultants & Resources, the leading strategic consulting company and industry data source specializing in the beauty salon industry, has just completed its new updated 2008 Professional Salon Industry Haircare Study.

The 2008 Salon Industry Study reveals overall salon industry growth at a historically low 2.8% and haircare product growth is even lower at 2.1 %. However, in spite of the deep macro-economic recession and low growth, here are some highlights, trends and bright spots emerging from the 2008 Study:

A major struggle for industry domination and leadership continues between the apex manufacturer (L’Oréal), the apex distributor (Sally Beauty/BSG) and the apex salon-chain retailer (Regis). Resulting effects of major distribution realignments and the move to direct sales are adversely affecting the industry, especially the leading marketers and salons-chains:

• Sally Beauty/BSG globally grows by 5.3% in FY 2008 - Booth-rental salons fuel sales at open-line Sally stores, which are up 6.6%, and Beauty Systems Group stores are up 3.2% on exclusive lines.
• Salon haircare service revenues experience very low growth at 2.1%, which mainly impacts chain-salons. Home hair styling during the recession with new genres of electric styling tools is very popular. 
• Specialty products grow at 6.7% and Hair Styling grows 6%. Shampoos and conditioners are in a low growth cycle due to realignments, mass-retail brands and diversion.
• Hair color experiences the lowest growth in years at just 3%, due to the recession and home-use hair color purchased at both Sally and mass-retail.
• Hardgoods & electrics see an 8.5% growth, from new genres of Chi, Bio-Ionic, Ceramic, Tourmaline and other product-materials advances and due to heavy home-styling.
• Booth-rentals are seeing burgeoning growth in select parts of the USA. Clients are opting for more personalized, private, non cookie-cutter type salon services offered by the big chains.
• Mega Salon Stores, like Ulta, Beauty Brands, etc., see flat to declining sales during the recession.
• Direct sales begin to plateau and decline slightly to 12% of salon industry. Aveda, Bumble & Bumble, Wella International, Kerastase etc., all sell direct to salons.
• Great Clips, an “economy chain,” has seen a 37% increase in franchisees. Sports Clips is doing well, too.
• Small to mid-sized product companies, like Aveda, TIGI, JOICO, Goldwell, Sexy Hair, Farouk, etc., are still growing, in a low-growth salon industry, while market leaders falter due to distribution realignments.
• New genres of “Naturals” products, like “Brazilian Keratin” and “Moroccan Oil,” are showing pockets of vitality.
• New updated section reveals shipment market shares for all top companies, with L’Oréal, P&G Prof. Care and John Paul Mitchell Systems ranked as the top three manufacturers. Zotos, Lauder and Colomer follow. 

 

For questions regarding the 2008 Professional Salon Industry Haircare Study, please contact Cyrus Bulsara, President - Professional Consultants & Resources, via E-mail at: cbulsara@augustmail.com.  

Let us know what you think of the above report.  Agree?  Disagree?  Share your comments below by clicking on the “comments” link below.  If there is no link, click here and then click on the “comments” link.

By Guest Blogger, Neil Ducoff, Strategies & Author of No-Compromise Leadership

The following was originally posted on NCA’s Facebook Discussion Forum:

As we begin 2009, there are some new absolutes being thrown into the mix. First, 2009 is going be an economic rollercoaster ride as the realities of the recession settle in. Surely the retail sector is going to take it on the chin with parade of bankruptcies and closings. Manufacturing will need to reinvent itself to take efficiency and corporate responsibility to an entirely new level. Likewise, the service sector will need to adjust to a much more conservative, value conscious and cautious consumer. Simply put, 2009 is going to be the year of not only fixing what’s wrong in business, but evolving quickly into significantly more disciplined no-compromise entities. And here’s the catch - doing so is not an option.

Success in 2009 and beyond is for those that can change and adapt. Hang on to “business as usual” thinking and behaviors and the odds are against you. It’s true the “good times” are behind us. But it’s also true that very good times lay ahead. In fact, for those riding the crest of change and reinvention, the good times are that much closer.

Here’s your first mission in 2009: Get real about what you’ve been dragging along … and get rid of it. There is no other way to explain it other than, “What’s tolerable in good times is intolerable in bad.” Here’s a quick no-compromise hit list:

• Employees: Every business seems to accumulate its share of employees that consistently fall below the line of acceptable performance and behavior. These employees may have been tolerable in good times, but you’ll never make it to the good times dragging them along. Make the no-compromise personnel decisions now.
• Spending: Good times can cause compromising spending behaviors. Trips, benefits, bonuses, generous pay raises, equipment, programs, assistants, and all the other stuff that was tolerable in good times is now intolerable in bad. Make the no-compromise spending cuts now. In fact, use a meat cleaver to trim every bit of fat.
• Accountability: This encompasses every quality standard, policy, system, job responsibility, client need, problem solution - every darn thing that has “get it done - get it done right” attached to it. All those behaviors that you were tolerating in good times is nothing more than the drag of compromise. If you want to make it to the other side of this recession and the good times that await you, become the no-compromise leader your business needs now more than ever. Everything is riding on your decision to engage at the no-compromise level.

Rest assured, in 2009 your competition is going to thin out. They’ll pay the price for continuing to tolerate the intolerable. By taking decisive action now, you’ll ensure that you’re not one of them.

Neil Ducoff
Strategies & Author of No-Compromise Leadership
http://www.strategies.com/
http://www.nocompromiseleadership.com/
www.twitter.com/nducoff

President Elect Barack Obama has put out a “call to service” for Dr. Martin Luther King Day - and likely millions will respond. 

On March 22nd, salon professionals and those representing companies who support the industry have an opportunity to serve as part of NCA’s Dining for Change service initiative. 

It’s so simple - and potentially impactful - that it’s amazing.

We are asking YOU (yes YOU – NCA member or not, salon pro or supporter), to consider getting together with a few professional friends on March 22nd for a bit of face to face social networking to “break some bread”, and each make a small donation (an average of $25 is our goal but any amount is a good amount!) to 3 amazing industry related charities committed to serving our communities.

Our really big goal?  To have 1,000 of YOU hosting an average of just 10 colleagues (co-workers, fellow local professionals, future professionals, distributor or manufacturer partners, or______ - you fill in the blank because it’s your dinner!) - that’s 10,000 professionals coming together on one night to do good work. 

And the dinners can be ever so simple - a pot luck with everyone bringing a dish, a pizza party, a meal at a restaurant where all share in the cost, or (?… again, it’s up to you!) - and also make small donations to our charities.

There are no “rules” per se (including the date!) Can’t do the 22nd of March?  No problem.  Hold it before or after and send your group’s donation in and be a part of our industry’s communal effort for change - and help us reach our goal of $250,000 - all for charity!

Take a look at our amazing charities - all industry connected - supporting breast cancer patients, the victims of domestic abuse and salon industry survivors of natural disasters. All supported by beauty professionals like you committed to changing our communities for the better!

1,000 hosts, 10,000 diners, $250,000 from our industry to help those in need at a time when they need it perhaps more then ever.

Won’t you:

Be a host?  Be the change?

For more information on Dining For Change, click here. 

FORWARD THIS BLOG TO YOUR INDUSTRY FRIENDS!

Remember: “Everyone can be great because anyone can serve.”  -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

On November 4, 2008 “Yes We Can” turned into “Yes We Did” and now President–elect Obama is calling us to service with the words “Together We Can…”

For NCA, with an 88 year record of service to the community, we know how we have and will continue to respond to the call to give back to our communities.

In response to what we know:

• Cancer will be diagnosed in 1,437,180 women in 2009
• Domestic Violence leads to the death of 4 women per day in the USA
• Natural Disasters claimed the lives of 4,104 in 2008 (as of June 24th)

NCA members, industry professionals and friends have already:

• Distributed 200,000 CUT IT OUT (CIO) salon posters to be displayed in dressing and rest rooms
• Distributed to clients over 3,000,000 CIO “safety cards”
• Certified 13,596 Look Good… Feel Better volunteers over the 20 year history of this program
• Helped 550,000 cancer patients by Look Good… Feel Better
• Raised $1,100,000 in emergency cash assistance for Salon Professional survivors of Katrina and more recent natural disasters

Just imagine what the “Power of Beauty” can do for those in need throughout our country with:

• 250,000 Salons
• 1,000,000 working Salon Owners and Professionals
• 2500 Cosmetology Schools
• 150,000 Cosmetology Students and Future Professionals

Together We Can…!

Together We Did…
In this season of giving thanks please let us know what you did in the last year to make a difference in your community.  Please share your stories below (and email stories and pictures to jlinas@ncacares.org) so that others can be inspired by your actions - and so that NCA can say thank you and acknowledge your efforts.

Together We Will…
Tell us what you are planning to do to serve your community in the coming year. Let NCA acknowledge and promote your efforts so that you may inspire others to give back through community service.

Everyone can be great because anyone can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t even have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve… You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love…   - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Now more then perhaps ever, salons are looking for ways to get more bang for the investment in space in equipment.  So we took notice when the following article appeared in the online version of the The New Post’s Page Six Magazine.

Now There’s No Excuse for a Bad Hair Day
A Murray Hill salon primps and crimps busy New Yorkers while they work.
By Christina Amoroso
 
Photo: Christophe Randall

Four MacBook laptops are enabled with Internet access for customers. “People are kind of surprised to see them,” Hanna says. “Then they check their e-mail.”  Now there’s no excuse for a bad hair day or night. Hair Party 24, a full-service salon, is now open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, complete with computers to work on while you get pampered.

The Murray Hill business is the brainchild of Jihee Kim Sporch, who brings the high-tech, late-night concept from Seoul, where 12 years ago she opened the first Hair Party 24. The Big Apple outpost emphasizes organic products—like the ginseng, ginger and mushroom powder used in spa pedicures—most of which are shipped in from Korea. The computers are equipped with Wi-Fi so you can finish that important report or clear out your in-box while you get a trim. Big leather chairs and three S-shape chandeliers (each resembling a wave of hair) adorn the sleek space frequented by models, tourists and neighborhood residents.

And while Hair Party 24 charges $5 more per service after 10 p.m., business is buzzing well into the wee hours, especially among workaholics putting in overtime, says manager Hanna Kim. “There are a lot of people coming in for spa services, like massages, manicures and pedicures, or, if they didn’t have time during the day, for haircolor,” she says. So get in there—and get to work.

Hair Party 24, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year; 76 Madison Ave. (at 28th St.); 212-213-0056.

To comment, click on the “comments” link below. If there is no link below, click here and then click on the “comments” link.    

From SalonLife Guest Blogger Winn Claybaugh:

Dear Future Professionals and Industry Friends,

The news media, the government, and even other business owners constantly talk about a recession, the onset of a recession, and how bad things are. What if those of us in the beauty industry collectively refused to buy into that belief system? Let’s decide not to participate in the recession because, as we all know, what we focus on starts to grow. If we focus on how bad things are, that’s exactly what we’re going to get.

That doesn’t mean we should bury our heads in the sand and pretend it’s business as usual. Now, more than ever, we must become proactive and give our guests an experience worth spending their valuable dollars on. Here are three things to consider:

1. Know your guests. Do you know what your clients really need? You might think, “Mary is out of work and can’t afford to have color this time,” when in reality, Mary might be looking for work and wants to look her best.

2. Give 110%. Before you blame the economy for a business slowdown, make sure you’re doing your best work. Is your workstation clean and beautiful? Are you giving every guest an exceptional experience? Are you creating an enjoyable oasis where your guests can escape from economic worries and other stresses? Assess yourself honestly and make improvements as needed.

3. Use your downtime wisely. If business is a little slow, use the opportunity to do the things you normally can’t. Provide education for yourself or your staff. Give your workstation (or business) a good cleaning or sprucing up. Plan some promotional activities, make flyers, or visit nearby businesses to promote yourself or your business. Get your team together and volunteer in your community. Activities like these will reenergize you and your team, and that enthusiasm will translate into increased business dollars.

Refuse to buy into the recession mind-set, and make things happen today! 

— Winn Claybaugh
Dean and Cofounder, Paul Mitchell Schools

To comment, click on the “comments” link below. If there is no link below, click here and then click on the “comments” link.