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Why 92% Of Beauty Schools Are About To Disappear (And What It Means For Your Salon) · Salon Success Secrets — The podcast for salon owners who are done hustling harder and ready to break their revenue ceiling.

• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, my name is Wynn Claybaugh, Dean of Palm Mitchell Schools.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: For over 40 years, I've had the privilege of helping thousands of students, including single moms, veterans, first generation Americans, and entrepreneurs fulfill their dream of entering the beauty and barbering profession.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Right now, the Department of Education is proposing a new gainful employment rule that would shut the door on the dream for the next generation.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Their earnings premium test would cause more than 92% of beauty programs nationwide to lose access to federal student aid starting in July of 2028.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: That means thousands of beauty and barbering programs would close and hundreds of thousands of aspiring professionals would lose their pathway into this$100 billion industry.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: This rule Wow.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Did that hit you the way it hit me the first time I heard it?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because I want to tell you something that recently happened to me, you know.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think after hearing that clip, you're going to understand why it stopped me in my tracks.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was driving past Bellas Academy.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's right here in Manhattan, Kansas, less than five miles from my salon.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I drive by it probably like three times a week without really seeing it.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: But on this particular day, I heard a commercial while driving by and it said, be your own boss, flexible scheduling, work whenever you want.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I want you to sit with that for a second because on the surface, you know, that sounds like freedom, right?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like empowerment.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like exactly what every young person with a dream and a calling and a set of hands that were made for this work would want to hear.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but here is what I know.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: And what I want the people who wrote that ad or the school that do not know this yet, that that message is not freedom.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: That message is the very thing dragging this industry down.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I felt grief when I heard it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Not because the students walking through that door don't have a future, they do a brilliant future, but because they are about to be handed a map, and the map is wrong, and nobody is telling them.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Lindsay, I've been sitting with something similar because I've spent the last couple of weeks in deep conversations with salon owners across the country.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: And what I keep hearing underneath all of it, underneath the hiring struggles, the revenue questions, the culture conversations, is the quiet knowing that the people who should be becoming the next generation of beauty pros are being handed a story.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: And no one is offering them a better one.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they're walking into beauty school full of passion, full of calling, full of this deep, most explicit love for people and for beauty.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: And within the first week, they are being told, be your own boss, stay flexible, work whatever you want, which sounds like the goal, right?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: But for most of them, it becomes the ceiling.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: And that is exactly what this episode is about, because there is something happening right now at the federal level that is about to make that ceiling visible to everyone.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: And we think it is time the industry had has had an honest conversation about what is underneath it.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, be but before you know we go deeper on the identity piece and we're going to, you know, I need you to understand what's actually happening right now because it's urgent and it connects directly.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: So the Department of Education has proposed something called the gainful employment earnings premium metric.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: So this would be starting July 2026, cosmetology and barbering schools.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: The programs will be evaluated by one number, whether graduates four years after finishing their program are earning more than the average full-time worker in their state aged 25 to 34 without a college degree.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: So programs that fail that test two out of the three years, they lose access to federal student aid.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: So before we go any further, I want you to hear from someone who has given his life to this industry, someone who has seen it from every angle because, you know, when when this news hit, he had something to say.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, it's me, JP, and I want to make you aware of an issue that's right now going on in our beauty industry.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: The Department of Education is proposing a new rule called gainful employment.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: This could result in 92% of beauty programs losing federal student aid.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Most students need financial aid.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's the only way they can enter the beauty industry.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, without it, many people won't have that opportunity because many programs will be closed.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: We need to make wow, many programs will be closed.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: That was John Paul DeJuria, co-founder of Paul Mitchell.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he built one of the most recognized names in this industry from almost nothing, you know.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And when a man who has given everything to this profession says federal policy is about to destroy the industry, you know, that gave him everything, this is not panic.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is not a warning from someone who loves, you know, this is not panic.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: This is truly a warning from somebody who loves this enough to say the hard things out loud.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: And you know what stood out to me is the number that should make every single person listening stop what they're doing right now, because it's that according to the Department of Education's on data, more than 92%, more than 92% of cosmetology and barbering programs in this country would fail this test.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: 92%.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: You know, not the struggling ones, not the low quality ones.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_03: 92%.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_03: That means schools close, educators lose jobs, and the students who need financial aid to access their career at all, they lose access entirely.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I think of uh Linnelle Lynch, she's the CEO of Bellis Academy.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: I know Lindsay just mentioned them.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: You know, she spent 20 years building one of the most celebrated beauty education institutions in the country.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, she's part of Beauty Changes Lives, the foundation that um she created has raised over five million dollars in scholarships alone.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: So Bellis has been called the Harvard of Beauty Schools.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: And even she cannot pass this metric that tells you the measurement is broken.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_03: The advocacy happening right now through the AACS, through the you know, PBA, the Professional Beauty Association, through operators filing comments and lawsuits and showing up for Congress, that work deserves your voice at it.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: This is a fight worth fighting.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, here's what I want to say directly to that number.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if the Department of Education were looking at the salons we own and work with, the team-based salons, you know, the beauty pro-led salons, the ones built on culture and systems and identity, we would not be having this conversation.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, those salons would pass with flying colors.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's the beauty pros inside those businesses, they're not dragging the averages down.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: They're blowing the average out of the water.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so when we say the metric is broken, we do not mean the career is broken.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: We do not, we do not mean the industry is broken.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: We mean the metric is measuring the wrong people and calling it a portrait of the whole profession.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not, you know, it's a portrait of what happens when you hand an entire generation of talented, professional, passionate, gifted humans the wrong vehicle.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then you measure the outcome.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the vehicle was broken, not the beauty pro.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly why this movement exists.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so here's what I want to say to every salon owner listening: do not wait for the policy to change before you start building.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because underneath the broken metric is a real question, you know, a question this industry has been quietly avoiding.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's time we answer it.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Who are we actually producing?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: Love that.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: Who are we actually producing?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: Because when you look honestly at the earnings data, you know, when you really set with it what is reflecting, it is not just a measurement problem.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_03: It is a divide problem.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: You know, there are two completely different people operating under the same cosmetology license in this country.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: There is the beauty pro and there is the person who never actually, who has never actually been building a career, who has who was handed that sign, be your own boss, you know, flexible scheduling or work whenever you want and and built a life around it and hit a ceiling and stayed there, or they even left the industry.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: You know, those two people are not the same.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: They do not produce the same income, they do not build the same life, they are not even in the same industry in any meaningful sense.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: And when the Department of Education runs the numbers, they are averaging both of them together.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_03: And the average looks bad.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_03: Not because this career cannot produce extraordinary income, it truly can.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we see it every day.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: It does, every single day, but because a significant portion of the people under this license were never given the right vehicle.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and here's where the real tragedy, here's here is the real tragedy, tragedy.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_03: If you think about it, it's not their fault.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they were handed a story, and the story said, be your own boss, work for yourself, stay flexible, build your own clientele, keep your own money.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: And that story, that booth rental, suite rental, solo operator story, it was sold to them as freedom.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: But it was actually a ceiling disguised as a door.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I want to take a moment on this because I think it is important.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we hear the phrase all the time in our industry, be your own boss.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, I've been setting with the etymology of that word.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: Etymology is just the meaning of the words because words truly matter.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: You know, words shape identity.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and this one tells a very interesting story.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: When you look up the word boss, it actually comes from the Dutch word bass, meaning B-A-A-S, meaning master.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_03: And the word master historically meant a man who had authority and control over a place.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_03: Let that set for a second.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: So someone who owned the domain, someone who had power because of the people and the systems and the structure around them.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: So when a school tells a student to be their own boss and then sends them off to a booth to rent a booth in someone else's salon or lease a suite in a building they do not own with no team, no culture, no systems, no support, they have handed them the title without the domain.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: You cannot be your own boss when you are one person.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: A boss, a true one, has something to be a boss of, you know, a team, a culture, a structure, a mission.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: You do not become powerful by going by doing it and going at it alone.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: You become powerful when you build something that is bigger than you.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: That is not philosophy.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: That is how the most successful beauty pros in this industry have always built.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and this is where I want to talk about synergy, because you know, when you were saying all that, it made me think of this is one of the most underrated words in our industry.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Human beings are designed to grow in connection.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's not a motivational poster, that is biology, that is how we are wired.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: A single person has limited energy, limited perspective, limited time, limited skill.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: But when people with different gifts come together around the same mission, something bigger happens.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, ideas improve, confidence grows, momentum builds, problems get solved faster, people feel supported instead of alone.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: So in a salon, think about what that actually looks like.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: A team of beauty pros who are fully trained in the sales process, who knows how to consult, how to pre-book, how to grow a guest relationship from the first visit into a decade-long loyalty, you know, who understand their numbers because someone taught them, you know, they understand those numbers.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: And behind that, Beauty Pro is a hospitality team making sure every guest feels like a VIP the moment they walk through the door.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's a management team holding the culture and standards, um, marketers filling the books, bookkeepers tracking the money, and a whole infrastructure we could go on and on, built so the Beauty Pro can do what they do best, serve guests through their portion of the experience without carrying the role of every other role alone.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's what a teen-based salon actually is.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a collection of specialists, each doing their own thing.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's a support system built around the beauty pro so she can become the best version of herself in this career without burning out.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Or he, you know, without guessing and without ever feeling like they are building something completely alone.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that is the difference between a one-woman or man show and a movement.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's why teams outperform talented individuals, not because any one person is not capable, but because aligned people create an environment where everyone becomes more capable.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: You can go fast alone, but you can go farther together.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and the booth rental model was sold as freedom, but isolation limits people, connection expands them.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, the team-based salon that is the real vehicle to go places.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: Now I want to name something because we talked about the beauty pro movement, and that word movement is truly important.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: You know, there is a difference between a movement and a cult, and I think it is worth being clear about which one we are building.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when I learned this, I thought, man, maybe I was part of a cult one time.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: A cult says, you cannot think for yourself unless you follow me, which me would be the leader.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: So it isolates people, it creates dependency, it discourages questioning, it revolves around obedience to a personality.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_03: But a movement says, think for yourself.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_03: Join us if this mission aligns with you.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_03: It empowers people, creates leaders, survives beyond any one personality, it encourages growth.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's mission-centric.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: A cult makes people feel I disappeared here, but a movement makes people feel I became more myself here.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_03: And the beauty probe movement, it is clearly a movement.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we are not asking anyone to surrender their thinking.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: We are not giving language to values they already feel.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_03: We are building belonging without demanding conformity.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we are calling people towards an identity that was always inside of them, and it just needed a name.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the other uh not till ago we launched the Beauty Pro movement at our salon celebration with um our team, and I was so excited to do it.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I actually did share with the team the gainful um employment, and we talked a little bit about that, and you know, we talked about what the average hairstylist in our industry makes.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I think is it 195, Lindsay?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's it's it's right around there, it's pretty close to that, right?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, sharing that stat and you know, sharing them what the um employment, uh, the gainful employment meant.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, Why do you ask the team?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: I said, Why do you think this is?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I was just curious.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to see what their insights were.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: And like it was amazing to see, like, they could even see it with their own eyes because they have experienced the beauty pro movement.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: And one person said, It's because most people get into this industry and then they don't even do anything with it.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that was a great question.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_03: I said, How many of you have been in this industry for 10 years?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I think there were like two on my team.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I asked them, like, are you the only one that still does hair?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: How many that you actually went to school with do hair?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_03: And they're like, Yeah, I think I'm the only one.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, Yeah, I said, I've been in this industry for 20 years.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_03: I know I'm certain I'm the only one that does anything in the hair industry still.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: And so I thought that was interesting.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: And then I said, What else do you think it is?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: And somebody else says, It's because booth printers don't claim their full income.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, Do what?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: That I was like, You get it, you get it.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, this is a movement.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so excited.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_03: And because it is so true.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like when we're fire or when the government is lending money of 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, and then we're showing that as an industry average, we're only making 19,000.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like, to me, it's a red flag for them.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so it was just a really powerful time to have this conversation with my team and to also um help them understand how we can really be part of this movement and really transition from the identity of service provider to beauty pro.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: Because I asked them, imagine if more people operated with the identity of Beauty Pro.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: What could this industry create?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_03: And it's always a really fun time to be able to launch that and celebrate that.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: I love that story so much, Jen, and and what incredible insights.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it actually just reminded me, I forgot several years ago, um, I was selected by the US Department of Labor to be the salon that they kept a pulse on for the economy.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like they um choose several different Congratulations.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: No one ever was like to win that, get your payroll audited once a month.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, wick a what?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: When they first told me that.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, uh, I think now I would have asked more questions, but I was like, yeah, let me give you all my numbers, you know.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember the first meeting that I had with them.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they were like, something's wrong.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: They were like, I can't, I wish I I should have thought about this earlier.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: I could have pulled the actual statistics, but they were like, so you're telling me your team is making on average this much an hour.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, we've never seen this in this in a salon business before.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Yeah.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I would re-add it, they would re-add it.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, wow.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, yeah, these are right.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, you know, things don't work out here.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: I might come for you and and come work here at your salon, you know.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we we laughed and we actually, you know, became pretty good friends, you know, Jen.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know you were around a few times and I'm like, oh, I and now I can't remember her name.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, I said I'll never forget her name.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, Suze Khan, I gotta give her my payroll report.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: I remember.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but you know, we were claiming all of our tips before we got a credit for claiming all of our tips.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: We were doing the right thing long before it was trendy to do the right thing, you know, and and movements, you know, they run on a principle that I think about all the time.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's the law of the farm.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: You reap what you sow, not immediately, not on your timeline, but inevitably.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and if schools have been sowing the be your own boss message, planting that seed in every student who walks through the door, they should not be surprised at their harvest.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a harvest of solo operators, a harvest of booth renters, a harvest of people who hit a ceiling and leave.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: That is what was planted.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: And if we want a different harvest, if we want a generation of beauty pros who build real careers, real incomes, real teams, real legacies, then we have to plant a different seed.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: That is what we are doing here.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: That is what the beauty pro movement is.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: So let me tell you who a beauty pro actually is, because this is the part that I truly love.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_03: You know, a beauty pro is one of the most extraordinary professionals in the world.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Beauty Pro walks into their day knowing that what they are about to do matters, you know, not just to the person in their chair or their table, but to that person's confidence, you know, their presentation, how they feel when they face the world.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: You know, a beauty pro sees the whole person, not just the hair, the skin, or the nails, the person, what they are carrying, what they need, what would make them feel like themselves again today.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Beauty Pro shows up prepared.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_03: It shows up on time, treats every appointment like a privilege because it is.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_03: You know, someone trusted you with how they present themselves to the world.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: That is not a small thing.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_03: That is a sacred thing.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, a beauty pro is always growing, always learning, not because someone told them to, but because they feel the calling of their work deeply enough to honor it with their whole professional life.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: And a beauty pro builds real income.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they pre-book because their guests want to come back.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_03: They grow their average ticket because the transformation they create is worth it.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_03: They retain guests for years, for decades, because what happens in that chair or table is not a transaction.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's a relationship.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_03: It is a legacy.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and here's what I want every student, you know, with an earshot of that Bellis Academy ad to know.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: The career that you are walking into is one of the most beautiful, financially rewarding, impact-driven careers in the world.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: When you have the right identity and the right vehicle to get there.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the ad says, be your own boss.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's flexible, work whenever you want.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: But what it does not say, and what they do not yet know to tell you, is that there is a version of this career so much bigger than that.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Where you walk into a team, a culture, a salon already building a reputation that makes guests refer their closest friends, where you're trained, you're mentored, you're invested in, where your income is not a ceiling, it's a runway, where you stop carrying the full emotional and physical weight of your career alone.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's the team-based model.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: That is the vehicle.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it has been the best kept secret in this industry for too long.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I've been thinking about what it means to be a beauty pro in the world, not just inside a salon, in the world, you know, and the image that always keeps coming back to me is of a honey bee.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a honey bee does not know it's pollinating the earth.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: It thinks it's just doing its job, going flower to flower, doing what it does, you know, being exactly what it was made to be.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: But the result of that work is that life keeps growing.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, things bloom that would not bloom without pollinating the earth.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: The world gets more beautiful, literally more beautiful, because the honeybee showed up and did its work with total consistency and total care.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: A beauty pro is is like that, you know?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: They think that they're just doing hair or skin or nails, but what they're actually doing is walking someone out into the world feeling more like themselves, more confident, more ready, more seen.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're adding beauty to the world every single day.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: The guest who walked in carrying something heavy and left standing tall.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: The bride who saw herself in the mirror and cried because she finally looked like who she always knew she was.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the woman who has been sitting in the same salon chairs for 17 years, because that salon is the one place she feels completely herself.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: That is a beauty pro.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: And there are thousands of them out there right now building something extraordinary, building something that no earnings metric can fully measure, because the impact reaches further than any spreadsheet can track.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_03: So here's what we want to leave you uh with.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, the comment period is closed, that window has passed.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: But here is what has not passed and never will.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: You know, your ability to walk into a cosmetology school and change the trajectory of someone's career before it even starts.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: Because right now, inside every beauty school in this country, there are students sitting in chairs learning how to do the work, learning the technique, learning the service.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: And almost none of them are hearing about the difference between a hairstylist or a service provider and a beauty pro.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_03: You know, one clicks, clocks in, does the service, and clocks out, takes the next client or takes the next guest, and never really builds anything, never really becomes anyone, just does, just gets the job done until the job wears them out.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: The other one walks in knowing she is there to transform a human being.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_03: What other industry gets to do that?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: Transform a human being, not just their hair, not just their look, them, the person, you know, their confidence, their identity, the way they carry on themselves when they walk back out into their life.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: You know, one is an order taker, the other is a beauty pro.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: And right now, most beauty schools, students are only hearing about one of those two paths.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_03: The schools are not doing it on purpose.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: They are teaching what they know.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: But if the only story a student hears is be your own boss, work whenever you want, stay flexible, she or he is going to build her or his career around that story and wonder for years why the ceiling never moves.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: So here's the call to action that actually matters right now.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: Go to the school, salon owners.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, ask to speak to a class, show up for a career day, invite a group of students to come shadow your salon for a day.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_03: Let them see what a team-based salon actually looks like.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: Let them feel the culture, let them watch a beauty pro work, not just the hands, but the relationship, the consultation, the connection.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: The moment a guest looks in the mirror and something shifts, let them see that there is another path because the future of this industry is not going to be determined by the department of by what the department of education decides.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: It is going to be determined by what we decide to show the next generation, what we model, what we teach, what identity we hand to the student who is sitting in a classroom right now, full of passion, full of calling, full of a gift she has never yet been given the right language for.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: She is not just a future hairstylist, she is a future beauty pro.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: And she needs someone to walk through the door and tell her the difference.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we just had a student come shadow.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_03: Her name was Frances, and she doesn't finish school until December, I think.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but she walked in and at the end of the day, we were debriefing really quick, and um she said, I just want to cry.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: And she she started to actually tear up.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, wow, she's like, I didn't know that that this could be real life.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: She's like, I went to school and then I stepped in here and I was like, wow, this really gets to be what I do.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: And so I just share that to tell you, like, man, we met her at a career fair.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_03: So get to the schools.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_03: That is the greatest gift that we can give students right now.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: She chose a beautiful profession and a and a great team-based environment to check out.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if this episode stirred something in you, if you already knew which side of this you're on, go to beautypromovement.com, read the manifesto, because you did not stumble into this industry.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: You were called to it.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: You felt it before you could even explain it.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: You are a beauty pro, and this industry needs to know it, own it, and build from it.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: The law of the farm is real.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Plant the seed right.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now go build something that proves that data to be so incomplete that they want to become beauty pros too.