Latest / Salon Success Secrets — The podcast for salon owners who are done hustling harder and ready to break their revenue ceiling. / Legendary Lessons: Unlocking the Future of Salon Success with John Harms of Meevo

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Legendary Lessons: Unlocking the Future of Salon Success with John Harms of Meevo · Salon Success Secrets — The podcast for salon owners who are done hustling harder and ready to break their revenue ceiling.

• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Salon Success Secrets Podcast.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: We are so excited today because we have a legend on the call.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: But before we jump into who this legend is, I want to take you back to the year 2006.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: So if you can imagine the year 2006, I had just purchased the salon company from my grandmother you know I'm learning all the ins and outs and she was still doing everything by hand.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: So appointment book by hand, cash register, the credit card, what was the thing you had to slide it across?
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Can you remember what that was called?
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: We still did that.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Everything was by hand.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: And so I knew in that moment I was like man, I'm not super tech savvy, but this seems like a lot of extra work.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Knew in that moment I was like man, I'm not super tech savvy, but this seems like a lot of extra work.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: So in that moment, you know, I did a little research and I found a software and honestly, I don't even remember.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I think the software might've been called Advantage and you know it worked for us for maybe like two or three years.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: The most it could do was take appointments and pull maybe a service report for total sales and a retail report for total sales, but it didn't have a lot of bells and whistles, and so, as we grew as a salon fast forward maybe three to four years I knew that that software was no longer working for us.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: And that's when I discovered Millennium Software.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: And you know, I remember, like a new kid at Christmas, when we first got it, I was like, wow, this has a lot of bells and whistles, I don't even know where to start, but it was such an incredible software where we started getting the reports we needed.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Our salon companies started growing more because we were able to really collect the data we needed.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: The marketing aspect of it was just like a really incredible tool that helped our salon grow.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: And I even remember, like back during COVID 2019, 2020, with a mentor that we used to work with.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: They're like yeah, this is the time you have time, salon owners, let's change our software.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: You know, go out there, explore, look at all the softwares.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: And I remember like, like, okay, maybe I should do that.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: And so I remember going down this rabbit hole, rabbit hole of looking at other salon softwares.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: And you know what?
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: There was a part of me that was like nobody out beats me, though.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Like they're reporting their, their marketing, the way they do their appointment book like, and so you know, if you've ever had a mentor that created chaos in your life, I feel like that's what was happening in mine at the time, but in that moment I knew I had to stick with Mevo and we did so.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: We've been a client of Mevo's now for gosh, I don't even know 14, 15 years, and you know there's one thing about Mevo that I love is that one of the founders or one of the legends of Mevo, john Harms, who's on this podcast today.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: You know, the one thing about Mevo is John is so active in his communities and his Facebook groups.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: You know he's always given suggestions and ideas and you know I think that is something that no other salon software does.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: So we are so excited to welcome John to our podcast and really dive in and uncover, like, how can Mevo or, you know, how can we make our industry better all together?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: I'm excited to be here.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: That's a great story.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of switching of software during COVID, for sure, and it definitely to our advantage.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: We had a really good year.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: And the thing is I started this company when I was 17 years old.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: So I had spiked hair, a lot more hair, spiked braces, and I needed money for college.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: And there was a local salon and my sister was a stylist and I said, oh well, how long could that take?
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: So I made a deal with the salon owner that if she paid for my college one semester of my college, she would get the software and she would never pay for updates.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: I think she had the software for about 25 years, so it worked out for her well and I would just go in there and learn.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: I just sit behind that desk and I think you know I went from saying, oh, I could write this in six months to realizing how complex the beauty industry was, how complex the salon industry was, and I just totally fell in love with it.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: I'm like, wow, the intricacies.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: And I could come up with so many little stories of what I learned behind the front desk.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: And I'll give you one quick one.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: You know I was behind the front desk and a lady came in and she went to pay and they're like would you like to use your gift card?
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: She's like I don't have a gift card.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: No, you have a gift card, $200 gift card.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: No, I don't have a gift card.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Do you know, tom, that's my husband.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Oh well, tom purchased that for you, you know, three weeks ago.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: And she's like oh, my birthday's tomorrow.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: And I was like, oh my God.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: So we were the first ones in the industry and this is like 1997, where I added a valid from on gift card, so that.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: But guess what, unless you're in the grind and you're doing those things, you don't learn the things that I learned.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: And so I'm very grateful for all the thousands of salons I've been into and you know what I've learned and what I've been able to bring to the industry by doing it firsthand, not some little geeky programmer in the corner, although I was really good.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: I've got really smart people doing that, but I lead the, I work very strongly with the product development department and programming and, as you mentioned, jen and Lindsay support.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: I mean I answer as many questions as my employees do on the community site and it becomes a challenge and it's fun.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: I beat John to an answer, you know, or I'm like wow, I got it right, I got it wrong, so I still love it.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: It's been 38 years.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: That's incredible, you know.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: That's super fun that you spent some time behind the front desk.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: That's actually how I got started in the industry as well, john.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: I think you know just seeing that aspect of it obviously has helped you to, you know, create an incredible software.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: And so when you first started in the industry, what problems were you most passionate about?
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: solving for salon owners?
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Great question, and this would be so shocking to everybody watching this.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: In the early 90s, nobody and when I say nobody, nobody wanted to use a digitized computer appointment book.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: They were fine to ring up sales.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: They were put formulas in, they would do, you know, reporting.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Do not take this huge paper book that I turn these huge pages and I erase and I write.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: And poor lady's been coming there 20 years and they ask for her phone number every time she's there.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: And so I think one of the first things I did is dive into why would they not want, you know, an appointment book.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: And I think one thing that made me good and I think I still pride myself in that is I always say I'm not the smartest person in the room but I'm probably one of the better listeners when it comes to software in the industry.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Like the industry knows what they want and they know why.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Who am I to say why, right?
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: So I dug in and figured out like you can't do a hair color the way you want it, you know's a solid, all appointments for solid blocks.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: So when they showed me, oh, I can do a men's haircut during the gap time and then, or during processing time, right, and then sometimes I finish and somebody else finishes it.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: So I need to be able to break that segmented appointment across employees.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Well, because I have an assistant and they blow it out at the end and I apply the color and I do the.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: So I said okay.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: So when I came out with the and I do say I at that time it was me myself and I the software at that time is called Salon Solutions.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: It was all written by me and I came out with the very first segment in a point book where you could say single process color and it broke it out into three segments and that finished segment could be with someone else.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: I went from 40 clients to 400 to 4,000.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Overnight had to leave AT&T Bell Labs.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: I was still working for them on the side, doing this on the side, and I'm like, wow, this thing's real.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: So the appointment book didn't exist the way the industry needed it in the early nineties.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's incredible.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: So good.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I love that story.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing that, john.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: And so when you think about it, like, if you have, we have a salon owner who wants to go from good to great, which I truly feel like that's what Millennium did for me at the time Like, what mindset shifts do you believe are most important for salon owners?
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, now that's kind of the next step of how this company grew.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: It became okay.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Now we've got all these great features, but what are the things that are going to keep people wanting to stay with our software?
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: And it was easy for me.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: If I can make them successful, why would they leave?
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: What tools do they need to help them grow?
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: So we were the first ones that really focused on client retention, frequency of visit, productivity.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Then I started to understand that too much productivity becomes negative, because we actually did all the scientific stuff where we could see when productivity approaches 100% or over 90%, your frequency of visit goes down.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Well, the detriment of frequency of visit going down is worse than productivity being at 85%.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: So it's all this stuff that I started going wow.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: And so we created these reports and these tools and our goal setting Jen right, all around to help you grow.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: It's not a point for every service dollar, a point for every retail dollar.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, you can do those things.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Those are just like nice little things.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: So every time I come in I see my points go up.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: But trying a new service rebooking, my service rebooking on the first time I ever come in, I get a bunch of points because I want them to come back in and use it towards retail or a service, right?
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I mean, my passion is still about those KPIs and and I've seen, quite frankly, and as you both have to, lindsay and Jen, I've seen it transform a small salon that's barely getting by to medium and just keep growing, because it's pretty scientific and it works as long as you're providing a good service.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: That frequency of visit and being on top of that retention makes all the difference in this industry.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: So good, that is great.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: And really it's like you're, you know, basically hiring a bunch of people Because you know, like Jen mentioned back in, you know when we first got started in the industry, writing out our books by hand was a thing.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: You know, having an actual.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: You know P&L I know that's a little different, but still like all of those reports that we're able to just pull in seconds.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: You know it&L I know that's a little different, but still like all of those reports that we're able to just pull in seconds.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: You know it used to take hours to create those to see.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: And you know, for somebody like you to have such a passion to see like hey, we know that these KPIs really tied to real results that people are seeing, it's basically like you know you're trading a couple hundred dollars a month for you know a whole bunch of employees back in the day is kind of what you're getting out of that deal.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: So, you know, would you say, are there hidden features in Nevo that most salons underutilize or features that could add major value to their bottom line?
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Like what stands out for you?
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to talk about a couple of things there.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: One, first of all, to your points you were making.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: When we went from Millennium, our installed base system, that was the most popular system and most awarded system in the history of the beauty industry.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Then we said, okay, we're going cloud, we have to go, and we named it Mevo.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Mevo, by the way, stands for Millennium Evolution.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: We had M-E-V-O.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: We couldn't get the trademark, so we added an E, so Mevo is Millennium Evolution and so I said I don't want the background to be a white screen or a logo.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: So if you notice in Mevo you decide you design your KPIs that matter and the minute you log in, the minute your staff logs in, it's by role they see the things that matter most to them.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: So that's the first thing, what matters most to you.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: You see all day long.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: You know what you're freaking.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: You know that you've rebooked four out of five clients.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: You know that your week rebook percentage is this right that you're, you've hit your goal or not.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: So those things are important.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Underused feature that I talk about on the community side a lot is a feature that we call.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: It's under our management menu and it's called sales ranking.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: So sales ranking in Millennium was just my retail sales, my product sales, right, who are the best by employee or by product or by service?
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: What are my most sold services?
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: What are my least sold services?
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Who are my best employees, the least best employees on certain categories?
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Well, we took that and really blew it out and added the key performance indicators to it so I can actually go to sales ranking and say give me my ranking across all my staff on Rebook.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: That doesn't exist anywhere else other than Mevo.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: But even Mevo clients, when I show it to them they're like I've been on Mevo for four years and I'm like it's right there, you know.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: So I would say sales ranking because it's just so cool.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: You get in there and you're like a kid in a candy store.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: I mean you're going OK, well, let's check productivity, let's go, average ticket let's go, and then all that ranking is happening.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: But you reverse the order.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Who would I need to talk to and work with to improve their numbers?
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, like I said, the goals actually tie into those things that matter too.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: So there are many things I would say.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: The average Mevo client probably uses less than a quarter of the system.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: So there's just so much value there as people continue to grow, yeah, so good.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Sales ranking actually is one of my favorite parts of MeVote, john.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I love it to use from a guest perspective or client perspective too, how you can pull the reports and then you know, look at clients who spend the most or clients that you haven't touched in a while, how can you nurture them to get them back in?
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: So I think that is like marketing is such a big aspect of it, and that report right there gives you all the data you need to create all the marketing that you desire.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: So that is actually one of my favorite features of Mevo too, so I love that.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: And so speaking of that.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, go ahead.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry to interrupt you but I'm like I have to say this because this is the most underutilized thing and I'd be curious, jen, if you even use it.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: One of the things I kept talking to owners about is retention matters.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: So much, right, new client retention, separate from repeat client retention.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: And they said, wouldn't it be great if I knew about my retention for next month or next week or in the next two months not being what I needed it to be, because I can't fix.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: You know, we're in May right now or coming up on May.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Let's just say we're in May, right, I can't fix February, right, but I could probably fix June.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: So we came up with the industry's first proactive retention algorithm that actually looks at the appointment book, looks at sales that have already happened.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Does this little whatever to kind of say here's your predicted, for instance, like I said, we're coming up on May, here's your, what May is going to look like if you don't make a change or you don't make improvements.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: So it allows you to proactively go after things.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: So I think that's a great feature too.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, and just as a salon owner, that's so helpful.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: So so good, because you guys I feel like Mevo is always on top of the trends or what's coming down the pipeline.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: You know, I even saw, maybe, that you guys are going to be interlocked with Zapier or Zapier soon, so that that will give salon owners some freedom as well.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: So, like when you are thinking of trends, what are you seeing now that you think salon owners need to pay close attention to over the next maybe three to five years?
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's obvious, the big one is AI, and I'm a developer and I'm amazed at AI.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: So we took all of our help content, the stuff that I help people with on the community site, that's in this brain right cranked in all these ideas, cranked in all the documents I've written, all the education my team's done, into an AI engine and now we have it in Mevo.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: It's called Mevo Interactive Assistant and there are so many times I'm helping people on the community site where I'm like I'm pretty sure it's this, but let me just check.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: I'll go over to Mevo and she lays it out so nicely Step one, step two, step three, and even if you spell it wrong you spell the word package wrong, you spell it just figures it out.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: You call it a reservation, I call it an appointment.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: She doesn't care.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, ai is incredible.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: So that's on help, where AI is really going to get great, and what we're excited about is when we can use AI to really do that hard work for you.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Again, jen and Lindsay, you both talked about it.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: It's like Mevo replaced a bunch of back office employees or people chunking through numbers and creating spreadsheets.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Well, with what's coming with the AI, a lot of owners are behind the chair, a lot of managers are super busy, A lot of owners own multiple businesses.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: This AI stuff that we're excited about will be what do we know?
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: What have we learned that matters?
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: And pumping that data into an AI engine that can identify the trends for you to say hey again.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: I'll use an example.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: May is coming up and last year you had a spike in this sale of this product and you're like, oh my God, I didn't realize that.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: So now you're getting ready to order and you're going to order more of that product because you ran out last year, like things that just are incredible.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Like I said, I'm a programmer.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: I'm amazed by it.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: It's everything people are saying.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: It is, and maybe more.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: That is so incredible and so exciting.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Like I think you know, really, ai has brought so many wonderful things to the world.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: Ai has brought so many wonderful things to the world and I would say for a salon owner, john, who's listening, who maybe feels a little overwhelmed with technology, what is one simple thing that you think that they could even do, maybe this week, to move forward inside of their business?
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: I would say this you know, whether people use Mevo or not, whatever software you use, I think what happens is we get so caught up in the everyday and the day to day that we don't just pause and go what can my software do?
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Kind of what we just talked about.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: So again, if it's Mevo, go to that help menu and just kind of look through some of the little classes we've done.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Go to that help menu and just kind of look through some of the little classes we've done.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: We have Mevo Academy with little two, three minute clips where you can just quickly get some information and get that aha moment Right or say you know what I should be setting goals, I'm not, how hard is it?
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: You go in there and realize that Mevo can help you set it up and you're like, oh my God, I can't believe I haven't been doing that.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: So I think anybody you know that's technology a little scared or concerned.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: I think part of it is decide if the tool you're on is the right tool and can grow with you and is doing most of what you needed to do.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: If it's not, then you know, look at other stuff out there, because a lot of us are progressing faster than others, and there's several softwares out there now that are really good.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Obviously, I think ours is really great.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: So definitely, you know we agree, yeah, we agree.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Definitely have a reason to feel that way.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I would say, take the tool that you have and just invest some time into it.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: We get so caught up in and I will guarantee you, whatever software you're using, if you just give it a little bit of time and go into those help documents or search for a term that matters to you.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: You heard us talk about retention.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I don't think my software can do that.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Maybe you go in there and type retention.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: You're like, oh my God, it does do that.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: So I would just say, starting there and seeing what you've gotten, if it can do the things you need it to do, and if not, then look what's out there.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I think the best time for people to change software, depending on the industry, but especially kind of salon, and depending on where in the United States, summer is a good time to switch software, believe it or not, because it slows down a little bit and you can kind of put the brakes on.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: You get through Mother's Day and graduation and you're finally, like you know before, back to school.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: That might be the time to switch software.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I love that idea.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: All right, salon owners.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: So if you're listening and you're feeling overwhelmed, you're like, okay, summer's coming up and you've been thinking about switching software.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: John said it, the legend said it, summer is the time.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: So what a huge gift.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: So thank you for that, john.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: And so when we think about one thing we like to do at salon, business schools really talk about, you know, a better guest experience.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: You know thinking, how can we make the salons like the Disney worlds of the world, like that experience so exceptional that people want to come back that when they think of salon, whatever salon you're working at is always top of mind for them.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: So, like, what tools in Mevo could a salon owner use besides the reports?
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I know there's, emma, if you want to go into that a little bit to like create that better guest experience.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah for sure.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Well, we've got some things up our sleeves that I'll tell you are coming, so I'll give you a little forward focus.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: We're creating a whole new view and look of our appointment book and anytime you touch a guest, that when it comes up, it's the beginning of AI.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: We call them opportunities.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: So when you click on something, so there's a little feature and I'll talk about what you can do today.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: But one of the things we're working on now is you click on something and it'll know that their package is about to expire.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: It'll know that they only have one left of the package that they bought, right as an example.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Or it'll realize their gift card's about to expire or low.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: It might realize they've accumulated 100,000 points worth $100 that they could use towards a service they haven't tried.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: So this thing that we're creating where the front desk you know, here's the honest truth that I can say to the industry and to say to you the average front desk person is, you know, if you keep them there 18 months, you're like, yes, wow, they lasted 18 months.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Right, there's a lot of churn at the front desk, so you want the system to be serving up opportunities to whoever's at that desk, including a stylist, might jump in there to do a transaction and here's an opportunity to, you know, to upgrade them or to do something.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: So that's something that we're working very hard on that will be coming out by the end of this year.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Now things for today.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: About the customer, I would just say that we have a loyalty system in there where you can give the points that we talked about, points for things that matter like rebooking.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: We've got docs and forms that are really nice that allow you to kind of communicate to the client before they show up or say they're in a hurry and they want they have to leave.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: You can actually have them go right on their phone and do what we call self pay.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: So we're doing a lot of things to make that client experience better.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Where they're like I like going there, they're online booking slick.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: You know, I can buy a package online, I can self-pay and just run out the door if I'm in a hurry.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: So a lot of great opportunity there inside the software already for kind of a client-centric approach and even the way our appointment book works and the rebook automatically coming up before they pay.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: What we've learned.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Here's a tip for people millennials, nevo or not.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: You want to ask for that rebook before they pay.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: What we've learned?
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Here's a tip for people, Millennium, Nevo or not, you want to ask for that rebook before they give you the credit card.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Once they give you the credit card and you swipe that card or you dip that card and go.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, by the way, as they're running out the door, we'd like to.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, first of all, big mistake, Would you like to rebook?
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'll get back to you, Don't ask the question.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, so our system will.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: As they go to pay before they pay, we'll say up to three openings.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, your haircut.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: We actually have these three openings again with Jen this date and this time, this date and this time, or this date and that time.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: So here's your three choices.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: So, oh, that one sounds better, or I'm not sure.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Well, let's lock one of those in and you let me know if it doesn't fit Right.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: So, getting that rebook before you take the credit card.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: So again, that's a client centric thing.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: That Mebo's serving up, that's already scanned, found the openings, knows who they normally go to, and you can rebook them before you even take the payment.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: The other advantage to that is guess what shows up on their receipt their next appointment.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: So those are great things that a system can help you improve that client experience.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Oh good, you know that is something that we have a new program that we're launching soon called Million Dollar Beauty Pro.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: That, you know, talks about the verbiage and the mindset and all the things that it takes to really create a six-figure income behind the chair, and you know a team-based environment, and you know that's a big thing for us too.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: When you're talking about rebooking that next visit, you know we compare it to, let's just say, like online dating.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: You know, do you want to go on a date with a guy who's like you want to go out next Tuesday?
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: Where do you want to go, like, are you in the mood for Italian?
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Or, or do you want to go out with somebody who's like hey, I'd love to take you out to dinner next Friday at 7pm at the new Italian restaurant.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Does that work for you?
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: So the same thing happens inside of our industry.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: So I love that you touched on.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: You know how.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: How can we really make that guest experience incredible?
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: And it is by setting up the pre-book properly.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: So I love that you mentioned once you swipe that credit card.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: You're done, you're good, they're out the door, they're on to what they're doing next.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: They're already at the grocery store, wherever they're headed.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: So you know, we know, that you care deeply about the industry.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: You care deeply about, you know, service providers, salon owners, everybody we heard you have.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: You're bringing back your epic event this fall.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Can you tell us a little bit about that, John?
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, super excited about it.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: We're calling it Mevo Live.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: We kind of created the live event when it came around software 25 years ago and there were big events and we had stage, you know main stage stuff.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: But then we had all these breakout centers and people would lead just huge ambassadors of us as a company and our product.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Well, when COVID happened, we obviously stopped, like everybody else, and it's just taken us a while to kind of get going again and put our toe back in the water.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Last year what we did is Mevo on tour.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: We hit six cities and just did it that way, had great response, at least 100 plus salons in each of those locations, 100 people, 50, 60, 70 salons in each location.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: And so we're like, okay, I think we're ready.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: So we in September are going to Nashville and we're doing Mevo Live.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: We have some great speakers.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, our main speaker talks about client centric approach and I'm blanking John.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: You guys know him, john, help me.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: It'll come to us.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: It's probably the second that we get off here.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: We'll be like, oh yes.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, here I'm going to promote him, and now he's like you can't remember my name.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: John that's a good name though, john.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: I know that you're going to be able to edit this and we're going to get that name and you're going to just put it right there.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: But he's going to be our main stage speaker and he's known, for he goes to a lot of big companies but he owns salons and he's built a whole thing around the client experience and making sure you have a client centric approach.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: I'm going to do some main stage stuff and then we have all these breakout classes where we're going to just really dive into the tips and tricks of Mevo and the main stuff around what it takes to grow your business.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: So we're excited.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I love the in-person stuff and I'd say 50% of it is the education you get from us and the other 50% is just rubbing elbows with other people that use the same product as you.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: So I could be sitting next to Jen and go, wow, I really wish they had this and Jen would be like, ah, they do.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: It's called the MR 200.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: And that shows all the employees exactly what their totals were.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Well, but I don't want them to see everybody else's totals.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Well, there's a setting in security that they only see their own right, so they end up helping each other a lot too.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: So that's I love it.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: I miss it, I'm excited about it and, of course, Nashville is always a good time.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, love Nashville.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: So September 28 through the 30th we'll have the link in the show notes.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I mean, even if you're not a partner of Mevo, this is still a great opportunity for you.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I would say right, john, just anybody in the salon industry.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: I mean we, we anything?
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Beauty and wellness, I mean?
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: you know, at the end of the day, a lot of times, depending on what exact type of salon you have, or spa, or a mix of salon and spa, or med spa everybody, there are nuances for sure, believe me.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: We know we're having to keep adding all these features, but the core of what we do in serving clients and trying to, you know, provide quality services but also provide that great client experience with docs and forms and proper visit notes and making sure that I understand exactly what John likes.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: You know, I'll even know that John likes cream in his coffee before he shows up, right.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: All that stuff matters.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: So the core parts of the product really transcended the nuances of which industry.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: We also do cover some of those nuances.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: If you're a med spa, you want to talk about Botox injections and how I track that.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: If you're doing color and you want to integrate to one of the color tracking systems out there, or you want to use Tippy for tips which, by the way, a lot of people don't realize it, but we purchased Tippy a couple of weeks ago a few weeks ago.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: So we actually own Tippy now.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: So it's Millennium Tippi.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: We just see it as a great add-on and people's tips actually go up and the expenses for the owner go down.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: So I'm like that's right in line.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Service provider's happy, owner happy makes me happy.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, we're making some moves like that that just make our product that much better for the people that you know, support us and use it.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Awesome, well, time to grab your cowgirl boots and cowgirl hat head on down to Nash Vegas, as we like to say, and and learn from Mevo.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: So if, john, so many listeners wanted to connect with and learn more about Mevo besides the amazing upcoming event, where and how can they learn more?
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: You know, just go to Mevocom or you could email us at education at Mevocom, m-e-e-v-ocom.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: And, of course, within the software itself, we've got Mevo Academy and there's so much great resources in there.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: And another thing I'll just remind people that use Mevo we hear all the time where can I find the webinars that you've done?
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: We do webinars all the time.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: We do all these.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Every update we do, which is every eight weeks, six to eight weeks, we actually do a video showing exactly what's in the update and release a document showing what's in the update.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: And all that stuff can be found right within your software by going to help and vivo academy or update notes.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: So just stay on top of that.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: But, um, yeah, I mean uh, they.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: If they want to get more about the mevo live, I think the the website is mevocom slash, mevo live.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Let me just look real quick.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Mevo live, okay, mevo dash live.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: So Mevocom slash, mevo dash live.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, that's awesome.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: Well, john, it's no wonder you're a living legend in our industry.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: Your passion for people, you know, if you, even if you just catch you on a forum somewhere, you can see that you just radiate love for this industry.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: And you know, we know, that it's important to be connected to the right people and it just makes your life run so much better.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: So today's conversation really reminds us that when you build the right systems around your team and your clients, growth truly becomes inevitable.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: So we're so grateful for you being on today and if you're listening, thinking, hey, I know another amazing salon owner that could benefit from hearing this, share this podcast with them today.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: Reach out to John, see, you know, hopefully you'll be in your cowgirl boots in Nashville in no time.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: So thanks so much for joining us today.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: John, we appreciate you.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Bye, bye-bye.