When Claybaugh is the dean and co founder of the Paul Mitchell Schools, which is about to celebrate 25 years.

He's also a school owner of 40 years and about to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his own podcast, before we knew about podcasts.

Today we're going to hear his startup and founder story.

I'm going to ask questions about the his path, his wins, his fails, lessons learned, the tangible, the intangible cost of entrepreneurship, and all lessons and relationships that led to his success.

Welcome back to the Hairdresser Strong show.

My name is Robert Hughes and I am your host.

And today I'm with Win Clay Ball.

How you doing today, Win?

I'm excellent, Robert.

Thanks for including me on this.

And, and, you know, thanks for chasing me down.

You and I were actually talking before we started recording that.

If my schedule was always available, you probably wouldn't want to interview me, right?

I probably wouldn't have much to share.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I, I will say it's always like, so lovely when I'm get a chance to talk to somebody and, and I know they're really busy in their.

And our schedules align like, so easy.

As a matter of fact, I would even say that when we were talking, it was pretty crazy time for us because we had our big event.

So I was actually grateful.

So I think it all, Everything just works out.

So I, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story with us today.

Oh, it's.

It's a pleasure.

And by the way, I immediately said yes.

And I, and I will always say yes.

Not, not to, not to not make you feel special, because you are special, Robert.

But I don't, I don't care if somebody has two followers.

If they say, hey, you want to be on my podcast?

I'll say yes.

I never asked.

Well, how many people are going to hear it, because, you know, because that's how it was.

You mentioned that, you know, 30 years do my own podcast.

The first person that I interviewed who said yes to me was Vidal Sassoon.

My gosh, I probably had, I don't know, maybe one follower back then, my mom, and.

And yet Vidal Sassoon said, yeah, let's, let's do this.

And so I'm always going to follow his lead and always say yes.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

So I guess 30 years ago, you decided to start a podcast, but before 10, 10 years before that, you started a school.

So.

And then you were.

But five years after you started the podcast, you launched Paul Mitchell Schools and And so I think there's a really interesting story here, and I'm very excited to hear it.

So why don't, why don't we go back.

Why don't we go back to, like, you know, Are you a hairdresser?

Did you do hair?

Like, how did you get into the industry?

I. I do my own hair, yeah.

You do a great job.

Thank you.

You know, no, I'm not a hairdresser.

I've never been a hairdresser.

Um, I never went to college.

Not one day of college.

I barely, and I mean barely graduated from high school.

Apparently.

They want you to show up.

I was busy.

I told them.

But I had friends that were hairdressers.

I always knew from a very, very young age, I always knew that I would be an entrepreneur.

Not that I knew what that meant, of course, when, when that decision was made or when that thought came into play.

All I knew was that, that, that I wanted to do my own thing.

And by the way, a lot of people say that, and we can have that conversation as well about what people think about what it means to be an entrepreneur, because that's a, That's a funny conversation.

But, you know, somehow I always had that thought.

And so when, when it was mentioned to me, hey, win.

Because I had money that I wanted to invest in some type of a career and some type of a business.

And my hairdresser friend said, let's open up a salon.

And I'm like, absolutely.

Of course, you know, that first salon was a three chair salon.

It was in the.

I'm not exaggerating, it was in the basement of an office building, not even a retail center.

And I think our rent was like $205 a month.

And of course, you know, I was the, the janitor, I was the receptionist.

I was the shampoo boy.

You know, I did the towels.

Of course, not only did I not afford to have a washer and dryer on the premises, there was no space to have one.

And so y' all would bring loads and loads of bags of towels home every single night.

And remember, remember that commercial where the guy has to set up, set the alarm to go make the donuts or something like that?

That was me with towels, you know, setting the alarm every two hours, you know, waking up through the night to change the towels from my washer to my dryer so that I can show up to the salon the next day with, you know, clean, dry towels.

That was the process.

That's that.

And by the way, I loved all of it.

I I loved it all.

And get this.

There are people who were part of that first salon 40 years ago who are still with me this day.

So it's been an amazing, amazing journey.

That's awesome.

So how.

Wait, how old were you when you started it?

I was three.

I was three.

No.

I don't know.

Well, let's see.

I'm 66 now, so like 18.

Or in your.

Or were you in your 20s?

No, no, I was more in.

In my.

In my 20s.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then.

So you're in your 20s.

This is your first entrepreneurial endeavor?

Yes, yes, it was.

And.

And it.

It quickly grew into a second location.

You know, my salon was in Provo, Utah.

Everybody's like, you know, where's Provo, Utah?

Well, it also happened to be home to Donnie and Marie.

And, you know, they had their TV show that was a number one show around the planet, that weekly variety show, and it was filmed right there in town.

And, you know, Donnie and Marie were friends and they were customers of the salon.

And I remember we did this.

We did a before and after picture on Donnie's wife, Debbie.

Right?

So a before and after picture, Right.

Sent it to the newspaper.

They put it on the front page of the newspaper.

So forget about it.

My gosh, you couldn't get into our salon.

So it was a second salon and a third salon.

And that process of interviewing people to come and work in the salon, you know, after spending a year in school, we found out that a lot of the graduates locally were not at all ready because it was the old model, the old mom pa type beauty school where it was the majority.

99% of the clientele were shampoo set old ladies.

And so, you know, they.

They graduate having done a thousand shampoo sets and one haircut.

So we thought the best way to train them would be to train them ourselves.

And that's when I got into the school business.

So question.

So how did you get the first space?

Like, was it like a handshake deal?

Did you have to put on a deposit?

Did you.

Was there, like a serious lease?

Like, you know, how scrappy are we talking about here?

Oh, very, very scrappy.

Very.

Yeah, it was.

It was probably.

And if there was a lease, it was probably handwritten.

And, you know, my mom.

My mom.

So my mom used to work for the.

The local newspaper in town.

Right.

And so when I started interviewing people from my salon, you know, people like, oh, I'd love to work for you.

Do you have a.

An application?

And so, gosh, I got to get an application.

So my mom lent me her application from the, the local newspaper.

And I have again, those employees who have been with me, you know, still to this day, after 40 years later, they laugh about the fact that their application to work in the salon had the name of the Daily Herald written on top.

So there you go.

It was all scrappy, you know what I mean?

But no, I have this belief system of ready, fire, aim, ready, fire, aim.

Because a lot of people, they're like, ready, aim, aim, aim, aim.

And they never fire.

They never do anything.

Like, well, I, you know, I'm still waiting to get the right mentor.

I'm still ready to, waiting to get the right financing.

I'm still looking for the right location.

And so they have this mindset of, oh, I'm going to do something amazing one day, but they never fire.

And so, you know, we didn't know what the hell we were doing back then, but it worked.

We hustled.

I still hustle to this day, by the way.

I don't think I hustle less now than I did, you know, 40 years ago.

But it was scrappy and I, and I love that.

I love that memory.

I love that too.

So on a side note, how do you feel about the anti hustle culture narrative and push in sentiment or whatever you want to, however you want to say it.

Am I supposed to be aware of that?

Yeah.

Is that.

You haven't heard of that?

You know, I, I think that the word hustle maybe has a bad connotation.

People think that if you hustle, that means you're, you're willing to screw people over to get what you want.

And I don't believe that that's what it is at all.

For me, hustle means I'm still up at 4am every day.

I still get up at 4am I still put a lot of thought and energy.

I am still on shaky ground every single day.

I still, sometimes a lot of times don't know what I'm doing, but I'll do it anyway.

And to me, that's all part of the hustle.

And especially, you know, I see brand new students in my school, you know, in their, in their 20s, and, you know, how you doing?

I'm tired.

What do you mean you're tired?

You're brand new.

You are brand new.

How can you be tired?

Well, what do you do on that note?

What do you do?

Because it sounds like you've been really, I mean, we're gonna hear more of the story, but I know that you, you've Done a lot.

I mean, we mentioned you've done a lot.

But, like, working and on staying on the hustle, what do you do for.

To find the counter to that?

Like, how do you.

How do you get your R and R?

How do you keep your, you know, in the mental health sharp and like, what do you do to take care of you?

I guess is what I'm asking.

It's.

It's a great question.

And by the way, a very necessary question and a very necessary process that, that we talk about a lot.

So, again, I'm 66 years old, and I have discipline, by the way.

That's another word that people don't like.

They don't like hustle, and they don't like the word discipline.

Like, discipline is a, you know, don't talk to me about.

Well, for me, discipline means that you're willing to do what you need to do, even if you don't like doing it.

Because that process of having the discipline and taking those steps and having that routine every single day, it can lead to things that you really want in life.

So, for example, I don't really enjoy going to the gym five days a week, but what do I love?

I love energy.

I love the fact that the parents of my daughter's friends at school, who, by the way, Those parents are 20, 30 years younger than I am.

I think I'm the oldest dad in the group.

You know, I'm.

I'm the age of the grandparents of her friends, right?

But they can't keep up with me, Right.

I remember, you know, maybe I'm boasting a little bit here, but I remember a birthday party for one of my daughter's friends, and they held the birthday party at the beach, right?

And the other dads came up to me, said, you know, could you put your shirt back on, Wynne, because you're making us look bad.

Meaning, again, they're.

They're 20, 30 years younger than I am.

But, yeah, I'm.

I'm.

I'm ready to hustle.

I'm ready to be up at 5am, 4am every single day, and I'll go to the gym.

Not that I don't make the gym enjoyable, because I do.

And I. I have this.

This routine that, that makes it pleasurable and think.

Something that I look forward to.

But what I love, the discipline that I have for the gym or for other things in life is that I value energy.

I value mental health.

I value wellness.

The reason why we invest in relationships is because, well, we value that.

And sometimes we Say that we value something, but then our behavior doesn't back it up.

Nice.

Love that.

Love that answer.

Okay, so let's get back to your story.

So you, you got, you have this experience as a young entrepreneur that turns in, you have success, you start opening up multiple locations.

How many locations did you get to?

I think in the salon world, we got up to three locations.

And you know, I'll admit this.

Had I stayed only in the salon business, meaning had I not started opening up schools and only been a salon owner, I don't know that I would still be in the industry today.

Meaning what, what helped me, cause me to fall in love with the professional beauty industry was not necessarily being a salon owner.

The reason why I fell in love with the professional beauty industry was because I got involved in schools.

I just, I love that culture of learning.

You know, I say that I can walk into my schools with the stupidest idea and those students are like, yeah, let's do it.

And I just love that energy.

Not, not that hairdressers, professional licensed hairdressers in the salons can't still have that passion.

And I, I hope that they do.

But who is it?

My good friend James Morrison from Tony and Guy.

You know, he tells that joke.

How many hairdressers does it take in the salon to teach a new haircut?

A hundred.

One to do the haircut and 99 to stand there and say, oh, I could do that.

And sometimes you do get that attitude in the salon.

You know, they, you know, they, they sit back and they cross their arms like, I dare you to entertain me.

I dare you to change my mind about how things should be done.

But students, again, that beginner's luck attitude that they have.

And which also brings me to another quick story.

Can you tell that I have adhd?

Can you tell you picking up on that?

So I'm at the premiere show in Anaheim maybe last year.

Anyway, so I'm there speaking, and before I'm speaking, this group said, hey, win, we want to introduce you to this hairdresser.

I'm like, okay.

They take me into this hands on classroom.

So you walk in and of course there's like a hundred mannequin heads set up there, you know, ready for this?

Hands on class hasn't started yet.

But they take me to the front row of this classroom and they introduce me to this hairdresser who was 85 years old.

She had been doing hair since she was 14 years old.

And yet there she was, paying money on the very front row of arrived before everybody else, and she's ready to learn.

To me, that's just that, that's what I mean by discipline.

That's what I mean by, by hustle.

That's what I mean by that passion that you have to continue to love what you do.

And, and by the way, I know some 18 year olds who already know it all.

Yeah, well, I mean, I, I, I mean, I, I was there before.

I used to know everything.

It's exhausting, isn't it?

Yeah.

So I met a guy.

Oh, no, what's his name?

First time he said he'd been doing hair.

He's like 88, I think.

And he had like a swagger.

He was.

Oh, man, I forget his name.

I don't have my phone on me.

But he was in Chicago and he's on the board of, of ABs in Chicago and he's still on the board.

You gotta love it.

Oh, I got it.

My, my wife just brought it to me.

Benier Beignet Davis.

And anyway, he's, I was just like looking at an interview with him that he did not that long ago, but same thing.

Like, he was saying that he just loves his, his, he loves what he does.

And he said, I find joy in coming to work.

And I tell the young people all the time, you need to find joy and what you do.

And I'm like, God, I love, I just like, I just like talking to him.

It was such a great attitude.

It's so attractive.

You know, Siddell Miller taught me this.

She said that to be truly successful, you need three things.

You have to love what you do, you have to love who you do it with, and you have to love who you do it for those three things.

Because if you love hairdressing, you love the technical and artistic side of it, but you hate the team of people that you work with every single day.

You don't think your customers are going to pick up on that.

Customers don't want to spend money in that type of a salon and that type of a spa, that type of a barbershop.

And so you need all three.

Love what you do, love who you do it with and love who you do it for.

Yes, love that.

Okay, so you have the three shops.

You, you start to see a, you start to see a deficit, or you've noticed that there's like a need in the education space.

And so like, you open up a school, like, can you tell us about, like, from idea to opening, like, what that process, like getting the first one open.

You know, if there is such A thing as beginner's luck.

I'm sure that that was, was hanging over my head because I, I just laugh at how we put this thing together Now.

First of all, my, my first school was on the second floor now.

And by the way, there was no elevator.

You know, back then buildings didn't have those same requirements where you have to have an elevator.

Well, I chose the second floor.

Why?

The rent was cheaper, you know, then, then, then, then a street level retail space, the rent was cheaper upstairs.

And so that's why I put my, my school up there.

You know, Gordon Miller, I love Gordon and known him for years and I think he told me this story 30 years after the fact that it happened.

He was managing some beauty schools in Salt Lake City.

And of course that, that boss heard about this young kid opening up a school.

Who is this guy?

You know, go check out the competition.

So Gordon drives down and comes and visits me where we, I don't think we had opened yet.

Maybe we were still under construction a little bit.

And I lied to him, you know, why'd you put your school on the second floor?

Isn't this.

I said I did it because I didn't want the old ladies with the shampoo sets to find their way up the stairs.

That was the excuse that I gave.

I didn't say, well I can't afford the rent for right or street level.

I said, no, it's, there's, there's a reason for this.

Now I will tell you though that we were very proactive in.

Because that's a university town and we were very proactive in marketing the services to college kids.

And so we were packed.

We were packed.

That was the hip place to come because college kids, they still want that, that the, the latest but maybe they're on a budget as well.

And so let's go to a beauty school, especially that type of a beauty school that didn't look like a laundromat, you know, didn't have a bunch of, you know, blue haired old ladies sitting around getting their shampoo sets.

Now I do need to come clean here is that I did repent and I did make up for the fact that, that we later took care of the, the old ladies.

And there's kind of a funny story behind that.

So I remember it being in the school and this old lady who had been coming every single week for years and years for her shampoo set.

And of course I, I'm always out there getting to know who they are and I love old people anyway and so of course I knew who she was.

Her name was Gladys.

And, and, and Gladys says, you know, hey, win how much and hair color can I get for $5?

I'm like, Gladys, you've been coming here for years.

You have never colored your hair.

Gladys.

Now why all of a sudden do you want to color your hair?

And she said, because it's my husband's funeral tomorrow.

I was like, okay, Gladys, you don't pay.

This is free.

In fact, Gladys, you will never pay again.

In fact, no senior citizen will ever pay money in this school ever again.

You know, one of those stupid business decisions that you make based on pure emotion.

Let me tell you something.

All of a sudden those 30 regular shampoo set old ladies turned into 100, turned into hundreds.

And I was getting cards, I was getting cookies, I was getting quilts, I was getting marriage proposals, you know, because these old ladies, they don't show up empty handed, you know, they're going to bring me cookies.

Right?

And, and it was, yeah, it was a stupid business decision, but it was, I guess it was what I needed to do to make up for the fact that I put my floor on the second floor, my school on the second floor.

So yeah, okay, so, so you open this school and like, I mean, this was, this was years ago.

So I, I mean, I'm kind of curious to know some of the details about what it's opening a school.

But I don't think it would be as, I mean, you would know because you're opening up schools.

So how.

So you had one school and did you open up another school?

Opened up a second location?

Yeah.

Okay, so that first school was in Provo.

Opened up a second location in Salt Lake City.

And, and then by then it was time for me because I'm from Southern California and I wanted to move back to Southern California.

And so in the process of doing that, kind of took a break.

My.

Not.

Not didn't take a break, that's for sure.

I've never taken a break.

But added another career on top of that, and that was to be a speaker.

And, and so I kind of launched a speaking career.

And that kept me busy for 30 years as a speaker, which by the way, also because there was a great lesson in that I think that every business leader, if you're, if you own a business, you need to become a motivational speaker.

Because I know brilliant, brilliant entrepreneurs who can't move a team of people with their vision using their words.

They're just not good speakers.

And so I think to develop the skill of being a wonderful, wonderful speaker, you better believe it served me well.

And I would venture to say that the majority of the current Paul Mitchell schools that we have, they came about.

Why?

Because those school owners who are now school owners, they heard about me, they learned about me.

They.

They were inspired by me because I've been on the road for 20, 30 years as a speaker, and so that's where a lot of them came from.

It served me well.

So.

So anybody out there who is interested in that, do you have any advice for them?

A lot of advice, yeah.

You know, first of all, I mean, the basic advice is that it's a skill set like anything else.

You know, don't assume that just because you're a success behind the chair or you're a success in the.

As a business owner, that that.

That automatically translates into having the skill set to be a speaker, because, again, you could have the best ideas in the world, but if you don't know how to speak properly and use your words to make an audience.

And when I say an audience, that could be an audience of one.

So it's one on one, or it's just your salon team, you know, 10 people, or, you know, sometimes my audiences are 5,000 people.

If you don't have the skill set to know how to move an audience, to make them laugh, to make them cry, you know, happy, good tears, to make them feel engaged with each other, to inspire them to want to leave there and do something different, you know, to be better, to become a better spouse, to become a better parent, to become a better human being, a better business person, to.

To not have the skill set to do that.

So there's great organizations like.

What's it called?

Oh, gosh, the local organization that teaches people how to speak.

Toastmasters.

Toastmasters exist in every community, you know, so, you know, start there.

But where I. I never joined Toastmasters, but what I was doing was I was practicing, practicing, practicing.

And so I would watch my mentors, these speakers on stage.

Some of them I met, some of them I never met, but I was, you know, huge fans, sitting in their audience.

You know, people like Tony Robbins and Louise Hay and Marianne Williamson and John Bradshaw.

I mean, that list goes on and on.

Leo Buscaglia, amazing, amazing speakers and authors.

And so, yes, I was sitting in their audiences, learning from them the same as everybody else, but I had double duty there.

I was watching them as a speaker, so I would watch them, okay, oh, there's an opening joke.

There's how they.

In two minutes, they.

They had a Banter with the audience to diffuse the tension in the audience.

You know, they.

They.

They made fun of themselves or they did something to all of a sudden put the audience at ease before they jumped into their.

What could be a controversial conversation.

And by the way, telling an audience that you can do better, that you.

You are more valuable than you think you are, That's a controversial conversation.

It really is.

Like, how dare you tell me that I'm not a victim?

How dare you tell me that I could be happier than I am?

And so when a speaker or a business leader knows how to do that, my gosh, just watch things come together for you.

Just watch.

You'll attract amazing, amazing people.

And that's.

That's the beautiful journey that I had.

Nice.

I love that.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Okay, so.

So you end up.

So you end up opening up another location.

You're at two locations, and then you start your speaking career while you still have the two schools.

Do you still have the three salons as well, or.

No, No, I didn't.

I sold them.

Okay, and you sold them before the.

You opened the first school or the second school?

You know, that's it.

That's a good thing.

A good question.

You know, probably all around the same time, you know, this.

The same time that I'm leaving Utah and.

And starting my speaking career.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then do you.

So do you open?

Like, tell us about the opening of the first Paul Mitchell school.

Like, how did that happen?

And how long after opening up the second location did it happen?

Well, you know, I.

Again, back to being a good speaker and how that has served me well, how I got connected to John Paul DeJoria and to the Palm Mitchell company was they were hiring me as a speaker.

I think the first time that they hired me, actually, I know when it was, it was in 1989, and it was soon after the man, Paul Mitchell had passed away.

And so they were doing these trainings, and they were looking for somebody that could come in and inspire.

You know, there was a lot of maybe shaky ground right then because people are thinking, you know, Paul's dead.

You know, the company's gonna die as well.

Of course, you know, John Paul steps up, and we all know how that story turned out.

What a brilliant genius of a man he was and still is to this day.

So they started hiring me.

And in fact, I remember a conversation with John Paul because I was doing a lot of work with Vidal Sassoon company, with Aveda, with Tony and Guy.

Meaning I didn't.

I didn't care.

To me, the banner that I was standing under didn't matter.

You know, what mattered to me was I was having an opportunity to share my stories and share my journey and share my ideas and.

And spread a wonderful message that was universal.

And I remember John Paul one day saying to me, hey, I want you to be exclusive with Paul Mitchell.

And I said, no, I won't do that.

And he said, I tell you what, he said, I will keep you so busy that you won't have time to work for any of those other companies.

I'm like, okay.

But that was as a speaker.

And so at around the year 1999, John Paul approached me.

So by then, I had been traveling with them for 10 years, and he had approached me about opening up Paul Mitchell School.

So when your.

Your.

Your.

Your school is just successful.

And even though we were in Provo, Utah, we knew way back then that we needed to be on a.

On a national stage.

And so, of course, my students were entering student competitions.

You know, back then, there was the Long Beach Hair show and the IBS shows, and.

And my students were flying to these shows, entering these competitions, and many, many times we were winning first place.

You know, so there we are.

A school in Provo, Utah, just took first place.

Who the hell are they?

Right?

That's.

That spread the word as well.

So when John Paul came along and said, hey, we've been talking about this.

In fact, we even found a video of the man, Paul Mitchell, saying, one day we're going to get into the school business.

And John Paul said, we really want to do this.

And I said, you know what?

I'll.

You can't pay me to do this, but you can make me your partner in opening up Paul Mitchell schools, and I'll.

I'll say yes to that.

And he's like, well, duh, He's a great guy.

And by the way, it's not like he said, you know, oh, we'll be partners, but I'm 51 and you're 49.

He's like, we're partners.

We're partners in this.

And.

And that probably was a lot of a handshake.

You know, he's a great guy.

So I've been a very, very lucky man.

And the goal, the goal.

And we found a video of me saying this on stage.

I had hair when I said this on a stage.

So that's how long ago it was.

John Paul introduces me onto this stage, and I come out and I say, make the announcement that we're going to open up Paul Mitchell schools and our goal is that we're going to, one day we're going to have seven of these schools.

And that was the big goal.

And of course we opened well over 100.

That's amazing.

That's awesome.

So I feel like there's so many little lessons in there.

So I feel like that was so, so good.

I have my.

I guess what I'm thinking now is what, you know, I don't know anybody.

I haven't talked to anybody who wants to open up a bunch of schools.

So I can't say I'm asking this question for a specific person.

I can say I've, I've, I have quite a few people saying they want to open up multiple location businesses like, like nails nailed spa or like a hair salon or barber shops, and they want to scale.

So I, I feel like I want to ask you to talk about, like, what is you open up one salon?

Like, I'm one.

One spot.

I mean, I'm thinking, like, you want to figure that out and then like, do you wait until you get that right and you get that down?

How long does that take before you open up the next one?

And then like, does it ever turn into a snowball kind of situation where you're opening up multiple at once?

Can you talk to about that?

Yeah, absolutely, Robert.

And it's a great question because what you have to do to be able to scale, you know, when you have two locations, okay.

And if they're 50 miles apart, okay, I can, I can drive from one location to the next location in the course of a day.

Which means if I'm the entrepreneur, I can be in both locations every single day.

But three salons, three locations, three schools.

Okay, well that gets a little tougher.

That means, you know, maybe I'm only in one of the locations.

Only one or two days a week.

Okay, well then what's happening those other three days when I'm not there there?

What I'm getting at is the success of your locations.

The success of any business, even if you have one location, cannot be the human being that's, that's the entrepreneur, that's the manager that has the original idea, the one that makes that happen.

You know, when I interviewed, I interviewed the, the president of Outback steakhouse, you know, 650 locations worldwide, and he said, you know what, win?

We have never received a letter from a happy customer saying, I love Outback Steakhouse because of the president.

He said, we have never received that letter.

He said, why do they love our stores?

Because of the frontline people, meaning it's the person who greets them.

It's the server, it's the busboy, it's a, it's the, it's the cook, it's the front, meaning the president is never in that location, and yet customers are still in love with that location.

My point is everything has to be systematized, meaning people do not run a successful business.

Systems run a successful business, and then you hire the right people to manage and work those systems.

Love that.

Awesome.

So that's what we were doing in that first location.

Everything had to be written down.

Okay, this is how we handle a complaining customer.

Well, write that down.

How did we do that?

Because when it was the original team, and I was part of that original team, oh, my God.

Something went wrong today.

Win jump in.

And everybody would jump in.

Why?

We were physically there.

You know, we had the right mindsets.

Our hearts and minds were in the right place.

And so of course we, we would handle it.

We would fix it.

But what if we weren't there?

Who's going to handle it?

How are you going to.

What's, what's the system to make sure that this business is a success?

And so that's what we really had to do when we got that offer from John Paul to go into business.

Okay, let's start putting everything that we do, how we run this place into a system.

And for me, a system is defined as, this is how we do things around here.

So did you know to.

I mean, so you were saying, like when you had.

When did you start doing that documenting of everything when you opened the first Paul Mitchell school or were you had.

Because it sounded like you were saying you, you were kind of handling things before.

We were just kind of handling things before between the two locations, you know, the second that we knew that, okay, not only are we putting the Paul Mitchell name on this, but this is going to be duplicated over and over again.

So there's going to be a team of people who are going to be running schools where I never step foot.

Not never, because I do, but day to day, I'm not in those buildings.

And this brilliant team that I've been working with at that point for many, many years, they may not step foot in these buildings.

It's going to be brand new people that, that are going to be hired to work in those schools.

And so that's when, yeah, we got to start documenting everything.

And by the way, when I say that they're.

That your businesses are run by systems, I think there's two qualities of a system.

The first quality is that it's written down.

If how you run your business is not written down, then you don't have a system.

It ha.

Everything every as simple as how you answer the phone.

And everybody has to answer the phone the exact same way it's written down.

And that's the first quality of a system.

The second quality is repetition, repetition of the system, meaning train, train, train, train, train.

Gotcha.

Yeah, this is great.

So.

So I guess if someone out there is thinking, like, they want to expand and you don't have.

And you've.

And you're not sure if you've got everything documented, just start writing it down.

And I. I feel like you could kind of like ask AI to put it in some sort of order for you later.

Just start writing it down and getting it documented so you have it.

That's so good.

That's okay.

So that's like one location.

So you had that first location.

Can you talk about going from one to multiple?

And what can you tell us about that experience and any lessons that you might have learned?

Any.

Any and any.

Any sort of, like, major mistakes that you had to learn from or anything like that?

Are we talking about last week?

I mean, I don't know.

You know, it's like, of course, we are asked people before, like, if about mistakes, and they're like, well, I don't really make mistakes, so, my God, we all do.

And we continue to, you know, which, by the way, you know, that's where the.

That whole sentiment that we were talking about at the very beginning, the.

The sentiment of hustle and discipline, you know, so, yeah, we're going to make mistakes, but guess what?

We're a culture of let's jump in and figure this out.

And so that's.

That's the hustle part of it.

Lots of mistakes.

And, you know, to this day, you know, like, so let's say that there are 10 steps on how to properly take care of a customer.

And by the way, I'm repeating the story that, that a spa owner told me, right?

And the story was, you know, you know, step one is, you know, you greet them.

You know, step two is you.

You have them change into this robe because it's a, you know, a SPA client.

Step three, you escort them to where they change.

Step four, you know, so all these steps, you know, 10 steps.

She said when we had to, we had to add an 11th step.

I'm like, what do you mean by that?

Well, because we told them to.

To Change into.

And I can't remember what the service was, but, but they forgot to tell the person to, to leave his underwear on or something.

I don't know what the story was, but all of a sudden this person came out and he was flashing everybody in the spa.

And they're like, okay, we need to add that step.

Meaning what worse today, may not work tomorrow.

So you're always.

I, I, I heard, I love this quote.

The, the six words of a failing business are, we've always done it that way.

Amen.

I love it.

Meaning you always, you never graduate.

You never graduate.

You're always tweaking, you're always reinventing, you're always learning, you're always adding to it.

And so, of course, what, what we started with way back then, you know, talk about that first school.

I remember when somebody was taking a tour of that first school that I was building.

And, you know, this was somebody who had experience in the school of business.

Maybe it was Gordon Miller.

I remember after the tour, they're like, where's the dispensary?

I'm like, what's a dispensary?

Yeah, we're going to do 200 colors a day, and we have no dispensary.

So, you know, so, meaning you learn, you figure it out.

Here's, here's the.

I'm going to answer your question now.

Okay.

Here's what I learned very, very soon into this process of major expansion was that not only was I not the smartest person in my organization, I also didn't need to be the smartest person.

You know, because there's, there's that side of me, and maybe a lot of entrepreneurs and human beings can relate to this, is that we think that if we're going to be successful when we walk into a room, I have to be the smartest person here.

When I walk into a room, I have to be the prettiest person in the room.

When I walk into this room, I have to be the most talented hairdresser in this room.

And if I'm not the smartest, if I'm not the prettiest, if I'm not the most talented, well, then I'm doomed.

Somebody is going to be more successful than I will be.

And so I had to give that up.

I had to release that.

And I have lots of stories and mentors who guided me through that.

Van Council, you know, he was really, he's, he's a good friend and a very smart, smart, successful businessman, yet he's so humble with his approach.

And you know he was one that sat me down and said, win, quit trying to be everything.

You don't have to be the smartest.

Just make sure that you're a super good person, that you're honest, that you're integral and you'll attract the smartest people.

You'll then attract the most talented people.

I still want to be the prettiest, but I gave up on being the most talented and the smartest.

So that's the answer to my question or to your question.

Surround yourself with super, super smart people.

I have the best IT people working for me.

I have the best financial aid people working for me.

I have the most incredible people who know marketing, who understand education, who are brilliant in writing, curriculum and publishing curriculum.

I have incredible people that work with me.

That's awesome.

That's so good.

This has been such a great conversation here.

Your startup and founder story.

It's, we're, we're kind of coming up on our time and I feel like there's more to the story.

You know, we, we got, we got, we got kind of into you getting lift off.

Um, do you like to wrap things up or um, you want to give us any sort of like any more of the story that um, you know you got the salons, you got the speaking career and you said you had a 13 year old daughter and so like tell us about like having balance in a family with be having, having like such a big business and, and any other bits of the story or something you might be working on now or anything like that.

Yeah, we could do a whole podcast on my 13 year old daughter and, and what, what it means to be a dad, what that did for me and I could easily, easily draw a line between being a dad to a 13 year old daughter and how that made me a better business person, how, how that made me a better boss.

You know, that's the conversation I love to have.

And of course I'm a swifty.

I'm a swifty.

Yeah.

Nice.

Okay.

And, and proud of it.

Um, so there's lots of conversations about that.

Probably the, the thing, you know, I, and I do have the discipline so you know, people can't keep up with me.

But that's not by accident.

I don't naturally have energy.

I don't, I'm not naturally a happy person, truthfully, I'm not.

It's something that I have to work at every single day.

And so that's where the discipline comes in.

You know, the discipline of being up at 4 in the morning, the discipline of Being at the gym five days a week, the discipline of eight hours of sleep every single night, like all of that plays into it.

But, you know, to.

To answer that question, to.

As a wrap up, I think that I would love to talk about the importance of.

Of philanthropy that every.

Every business.

And I don't care if you've been in business only two days.

Tell me about your plan for philanthropy.

Tell me about your plan to give back to your community because you're.

You're consuming.

We're all consumers.

We consume water, we consume trees, we consume oxygen.

And every business is consuming a portion of the paychecks of their customers.

So you're consuming, you're taking, taking, taking.

How you're giving back.

How are you a contributor?

And I just want to encourage people.

And thankfully, I had wonderful parents who taught me that from the day I was born.

I had wonderful mentors, including John Paul dejorie and many, many others who, who said, yeah, we can't pay our bills, but are you making a difference in your community?

And, and that would, that would be the encouragement that I would give is find a way.

And it could be that your whole team signs up for a cancer walk or, or maybe because it can't just be one black tie event that you attend every single year.

That's great doing that in September, but what about in October?

What are you doing in November?

What are you doing in January?

What are you doing about the food bank in February?

What do you.

Meaning it's an ongoing commitment that you have.

And, and that's just the challenge that I would give to people.

You know, I'm very, very proud of the fact, and I'll shout it from the rooftops, that our Palm Mitchell schools have raised and donated $26 million in the last 20 years.

Wow, that's exciting.

And by the way, we don't.

We.

We didn't raise that by getting large donations.

Our Average donation is $5, $10 at a time.

Wow, that's impressive.

Nice.

That's so cool.

This is.

This has been such a pleasure chatting with you, getting to hear some of your story, and I'm more than happy.

And actually, you know, my wife and I are talking about kids.

You know, God willing, we'll be able to join you in parenthood in the future.

But.

So I would definitely be interested in having that conversation for my own selfish reasons, but I'm sure there's plenty of folks out there that would like to hear that as well, so we should definitely make that happen.

Oh, absolutely.

You know, just.

Just a lesson of being present.

Just being present, you know.

Sorry a little girl requires that.

Daddy, I know you're famous.

Actually she doesn't know I'm famous.

She doesn't care if I'm famous.

She doesn't care if I have a certain amount of money in my bank.

She doesn't care about any of that.

What does she care?

Am I present?

But guess who else cares about that?

Your team.

Right.

So yeah, great lessons.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come on to the show.

It's been a pleasure and I hope to be have this chance again and then in the future to continue, all.

You have to do is ask.

You're very good at what you do, Robert, so.

So thanks for the opportunity.

I'm truly, truly grateful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And until next time.

See ya.

Thank you.