Welcome back to the Hair Twister.

Strong news.

And what does it have to do with you?

We get together once a month and I update you on all the big stories that have happened in the world and the country and how, why it's important to you, your life, your business and your customer.

All right, so let's dive right in just to kind of give you an overview real quick.

We have, we have an economic overview.

We have some inflation data.

We have some recession talk.

We have consumer spending and confidence updates.

We have small business and scaling insights for people trying to build a brand or trying to expand their business, workplace trends and mental health for any of you who have employees or if you are an employee or looking for to find a job.

And, and then last but not least, we have stuff about the global economy, like stuff about tariffs and a really interesting piece about student loans.

All right, let's dive right in.

I'm going to share my screen if you're following.

If you're listening on podc, then you can use the links below to do your own research.

All right, so let's share my screen.

All right, so what you're looking at is an executive order from the White House and it's titled Preparing Americans for High Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future.

So if we scroll down here a little bit, we can see it is a polity of the United States to optimize and target federal investments and workforce development to align with our country's reindustrialization needs and equip American workers to fill the growing demand for skilled trades and other occupations.

So say what you want about politics, but that's not what we do here.

We don't, we don't talk about things because of the politics.

We talk about things because they impact our lives, our business and our communities and our customers.

So how does this impact our business in our lives?

Well, this should, in theory, create momentum towards people, more people coming into this industry.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

That piece I leave up to you.

I'd be curious to know if you think this is good or bad.

But nonetheless, if you know, this might be a positive thing.

If you have a business and you're finding it hard to attract new talent, this would make it challenging for new talent.

It would increase the competition for jobs and for customers for new talent.

It would increase the flow of students into schools so the schools can run even better programs.

You know, the more students they have, the more money that they can invest in the programs themselves.

I'm not saying that this Stuff is exactly how it happens.

But this is the type of stuff that we talk about here.

This is happening now.

Let's go and talk a little more about what's happening.

This is a CNBC titled Gen Z Workers increasingly opt out of college and into the trades.

There are about 2 million fewer students, says experts, according to Zachary Green and Jilly Malinsky.

Now this just kind of come down here and it says as members of Gen Z continue graduate high school and enter adulthood, many elect to forego traditional college degrees.

There's so much information about the fact that the average college degree is not a good investment and does not deliver a good R as compared to say, buying the S&P 500, working at a job, making less money, not spending frivolously, maxing out Roth ira, putting money aside, saving it.

You know, there's something called the fire movement you might want to check out.

Financially independent, retire early.

This something like you live off of only like 30% of your income or something like that.

And yes, you need to like make a certain amount of money, but you, you focus on getting jobs that you can make money at.

You don't even need to own your own business and you could be millionaire by the time before you're 40.

I know somebody who's done this and now has never owned a business and so like that's saying a lot.

Do you actually really.

And they've only made six figures for maybe 10 years of, of 20 years of work.

So the first 10 years made less than six figures and 10 years after went from like 80 to 90 to 100 to 140, I think.

So just to say, just to kind of point out that like you don't need to own your own business to become a millionaire and you don't need to go to college to become wealthy.

You need basic education, understanding about how money works.

Like the wealthy people, they might take a percentage of their money and put in high risk trades, but the majority of the money is being put in index funds and buying the whole stock market and etc.

Working with a financial advisor like that is the way.

So this all lines up.

People are finally waking up to college degrees not being on average worth it.

And you know, the majority of us if we go to college will not get a good roi.

That's in part because of the cost of getting a bachelor's degree.

So the annual cost of attending a four year in state public college increased by 30% from 2011 to 2023 and went up by 42% at private non profit four year colleges.

So that's happening.

I'm curious to know like are any of you in this camp where like you've done really well as a hairdresser but you want your kids to go to college?

I'd really like to hear from you.

I'd like to hear that conversation play out.

I'm not saying they people shouldn't go to college.

I got a higher education degree and I think I got a lot out of it.

I'm not sure if I if I'm going to get as good of an ROI after I pay off all the interest and stuff on it, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Now, economic overview for the CPI data for March was released during April.

That's the inflation is consuming continuing to put pressure on consumers with key areas like energy and food seeing increases.

What I have pulled up here is consumer price index for all urban consumers.

It actually decreased 0.1% on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.2% in February.

Overall the last 12 months all items index increased 2.4% before seasonally adjusted.

Inflation is here Index for Energy fell 2.4% as a 6.3% decline in the index for gasoline more than offset increases in the indexes for electricity and natural gas.

So basically like gas prices fell and that's why inflation didn't go up as much.

But without gas pricing falling, maybe we wouldn't have experienced such a lowering inflation.

Now let's keep moving.

Speaking of speaking of inflation in the economy, there's a lot of conversations about recession hair.

As a matter of fact, we're seeing people so terrified of recession, especially people that are younger and new at this, maybe haven't seen or lived through a recession.

The Great Res the Great recession was during 2008, which I was about six years out of high school.

So I was in the work.

I was working and that whole thing like totally impacted me.

And now you're seeing those conversations.

You're seeing millennials and Gen Xers tell young millennials and Gen Z about how they handled the recession.

And even though they're going to be different.

This article is originally Fortune.com now on Yahoo.

Finance by Emma Burley titled Gen Zers are so terrified of recession that they're ditching doom spending ordering happy using ChatGPT for free therapy.

So all all you all we need to really know here is that there's a shift in consumer spending.

There's a shift in sentiment and sentiment in the short term.

Rules markets and rules buying decisions in the short term.

So the long term we are prepared because we have an emergency fund.

We put money away in emergency fund before we go and try to invest in the stock market.

For example, we put money in our emergency fund before we go out and buy that bag that we've been wanting to buy, go out to the dinner that we wanted to go to.

We do make sacrifices so that we can handle times like this.

Now, if you have not had enough time to work and save, then you rightfully so are going to be concerned about a recession coming.

Let's continue this conversation about a potential recession.

Now, I'm not trying to be a fear monger.

I'm trying to say be prepared.

If you're not prepared, you will regret it.

I promise.

Now this is on NBC.

This is titled, this is article by Bethany Heatman and it is titled Recession Session.

Hair is chic, strategic and won't bleed your wallet dry.

So basically this article is like we've seen it beauty Launchpad mentioned it.

This is like we've been seeing this a lot.

The root stretch, like blending gray hair or doing balayage or doing, doing things with like diffused lines.

So like maybe teasy lights or air touch or balayage highlights.

It's hard to, it's hard to stretch out gray coverage.

You know, if they're like 60, 50% gray or more and they're, you're artificially coloring that you're covering the gray, that gray hair still comes in.

So what I'm doing is playing around with demi permanent color to see if people can be okay with less coverage, more blending, more scratching the eye, more staining the hair, etc.

And then glosses.

Glasses are like the biggest value in any of the services that I perform because with a gloss you could do just so much.

All right, so let's keep moving.

So let's move on to consumer spending and confidence.

So according to the conference board Consumer Confidence Index fel sharply in April, signaling that Americans are becoming more cautious and they're spending.

The rising cost of living coupled with a threat of recession is causing concern.

So we just talked about that.

We talked about the recession here.

Now let's talk about what we can do in the meantime, while we are letting what's happening with the trade war and tariffs, economic policy, the tax stuff is being in the and the budget in the US Is being negotiated.

So while all that's panning out because it's really hard to say what exactly is going to happen, you know, it's kind of like Wake me up in November where I can look back and tell you everything that happened and then I can tell you everything that's going to happen in the future.

But right now it's so hard to even speculate that most people don't even try.

So instead we work on our businesses.

We work on being healthy in our lives.

We work on delivering exceptional customer experiences.

According to entrepreneur.com article by Ivana Johnston, edited by Chelsea Brown, titled How entrepreneurs can tap into what really drives the Ultra wealthy and to build a brand that they can't resist.

So if we scale down in here, the psychology driven seven figure purchases.

It says beneath every significant luxury purchase lies a triad of psychological forces that mo.

Triad of triad.

Anyway, a 5 of psychological forces that most entrepreneurs completely miss.

The scarcity principle.

Desirability increases in direct proportion to perceived exclusivity.

So meaning the more exclusive something is, the more desirability it is.

It doesn't.

Yeah, I mean it's just the psychology of consumption is insane to me because like Americans are so obsessed with like consumption and purchasing and having things that we use it to define ourselves.

When acquisition requires both means and access, the object transcends mere expense and becomes genuinely coveted.

I've watched brands destroy their legacy by expanding too quickly, trading exclusivity for short term profits.

The fall from luxury to ordinary happens fast and recovery is nearly impossible.

The identity confirmation effect.

Affluent customers don't acquire possessions to reinvent themselves.

They select items that authenticate who they already believe themselves to be.

The ideal luxury acquisition doesn't transform identity, it crystallizes and validates it.

And then the belonging paradox.

Belonging distinction paradox.

Sophisticated consumers navigate.

Navigate seemingly contradictory desires, membership and exclusive circles while maintaining individual distinctiveness within them.

Okay, here we go.

One more sentence.

This elegant tension explains why personalization has become the cornerstone of contemporary luxury offerings.

So it goes on.

It talks about the three types of luxury buyers, classic connoisseur, next gen affiliate, affluent and the self made elite.

So going up here, these different ideas of psychology stuff, this just kind of leans, this just kind of proves the point that's being made.

Largely we're, we're pushing this point as well that we need to lean into customer experience.

We need to think about every single click that they take, every single visual that they have on their way to getting to our, our salon or our shop or our suite.

What does that experience look like?

What does it feel like?

How much friction is there?

Is it a fun experience?

Is it a desirable experience?

Is it something that is painful when they, when they come into your space, how are they greeted?

So if you like take over a salon or a suite or a barbershop and you just kind of keep the, keep the furniture and like give it a paint job and the smile, it's going to be pretty challenging to create a high end customized experience.

I mean, if you're taking over maybe a high end space, then maybe you want to keep the, keep the furniture.

But like at the end of the day, does a customer walk in and be like, wow, this person really put a lot of thought into every little piece, every tchotchke, every rug, every, every accent, every piece of furniture, etc.

And is my, has my customer experience been so tailored that I just feel like people are here to serve me?

Like I am walking to a space where people want to serve me, not just do my hair.

That, my friends, is the secret to getting through this whole situation.

In my opinion, that's not financial advice.

Okay, moving on.

Okay.

Workplace trends and mental health.

Gen Z and Millennials work.

Let's see, I'm having freeze up here.

So workplace trends and mental health.

I'll just talk with this article.

So this is Fortune.com Gen Z and millennial workers would accept lower salaries in exchange for this one thing from their employers.

This whole piece talks about how, this whole piece talks about how we are.

Look, we are in an era where people much more prefer to have positive mental and physical health, being able to build, develop healthy habits and they're willing to take less money.

I'm wondering if you believe that to be true or you found that to be true.

In here it says we found that mental health is one of the top three priorities of people worldwide today.

Gurpreet Singh, founder of Round Glass, who worked on this study, said in a press release, employees don't want to sacrifice their well being for a job.

And if employers don't address this issue, it's going to hurt the company's bottom line to attract and retain talent.

Placing importance on employee mental health is non negotiable.

Now don't think this is a Gen Z thing.

Like this is a, and this is an employee thing.

This is.

If you have employees, then you need to know this.

If you are an employee, then you need to know that.

That this is the time to have a conversation about mental health at work.

You know, people want this.

You know, speaking of mental health, this New York Post article is titled let's get to the top big article.

Work wives and happy hours are becoming extinct.

Here's how to bond with Co workers.

And then this is.

I got another one here.

Let's see, where is it?

All right.

Anyway, so work wise and happy hours are becoming extinct.

So like this whole thing talks about how people want to have relationships with people at work, however, and they don't have them, especially new, new people coming in.

That's not just new people, but definitely people coming into a business.

They want to have interactions.

Most people that can work from home, they, this is a bigger issue for them.

We work together all the time.

I know I had a lot of my friends and the people I hung out with were working in a salon and I loved it.

But that isn't for everybody.

And it seems that people want to have relationships and want to do stuff with people.

So maybe like once a quarter maybe go out to dinner or do some sort of event or you know, to have some sort of outing that isn't necessarily centered around hair or maybe twice a year and the other two times every, every other quarter and every in the quarters in between.

Maybe you do do something educational to help advance careers.

But this is saying that people want to go out and have a drink or go out to have a have a bite to eat.

It also tells people that they should band together about griping about the workplace, which I don't know about that.

I mean it says social cohesion and mutual support increases when all parties are suffering together and focusing on terms term on team goals.

Like I think what they mean to say is like having something that's a goal or a challenge that's difficult that everybody has to pull their weight to get over versus saying let's complain about this new policy.

Or my boss, I would be careful to how we read this if you decide to read it.

But what I got out of it was people want to bond with co workers.

They just don't want to bond as much as they used to before COVID because now everyone's got their own life now.

Last but not least, we are now on global domestic and economic shifts.

This is an Associated Press it's titled US Tariffs will Weaken global economy and Trigger Inflation but not a Global recession.

IMF says this is an article by Christopher Rugabar.

It starts off by saying surging U.S.

tariffs will weaken the global economy and push up inflation this year.

However, I have heard a lot of people talking about how most of these things will be in a one time inflationary purchase and then those will be the prices.

So it won't be going up and up and up.

You'll see prices increase noticeably and Then we'll be back to normal level low inflation which has just always been around.

It's just been super low from 2008 Covid basically we've had almost no inflation.

And that changed quickly as everyone knows.

And now we're about to experience some more inflation.

But this is basically saying don't be so concerned about inflation will we will get inflation but it's not going to be runaway inflation like it was during COVID And they're also saying that this won't cause a worldwide recession.

And it says the economy's resilience is being tested by the reboot of global trading system that threatens to cause turbulence in the financial markets.

And if I scroll down here says that the whoever's talk talking right here.

The chief economist wrote that the current policies under the current administration promise to introduce our likely to push inflation just in the near term.

And the forecast from January are expected to change possibly significantly.

And it says the IMF is a lending organization that works to promote economic growth and financial stability.

If you didn't know who they were, basically the International Monetary Fund.

They are definitely an authority on this conversation.

So this is basically saying we shouldn't have to worry too much about recession but get it, get ready for prices to go up but they might not go up constantly now tariffs disrupt supply chain.

And I've been talking to manufacturers and you know, the hair companies, Pivot point and hair art I think are the best.

I think pivot point is probably number one.

And then hair art is, is good too.

And I use hair art a lot in our classes or Pivot Point and I don't, I don't even like I tell all the students don't even bring any other mannequins.

Just bring these two mannequins.

Because mannequin heads for haircutting, maybe color, it's one thing but for cutting, if the hairline isn't stitched correctly, if the hair isn't decent quality, then you can't actually see the haircut.

It's actually a complete waste of money to buy crapp mannequins.

Industry service announcement Stop buying crappy mannequins.

Only buy good mannequins.

I've only seen two brands that are good and that's pivot point number one.

Hair art number two and the rest are crap.

If you, you have one that's good then the fine.

But if you do, if you can't find, I would like to know what it is.

But until we find any replacements, don't show up to a Cutting class with any type of mannequin like that because you will be wasting your money and you'll think it's the instructor.

And I'm telling you like it is.

You cannot see haircuts, especially short haircuts.

If you want to do like long layers with like a barrel curling iron, then it probably won't matter.

If you're doing it for color, maybe it won't matter.

But if you want to do a me, a bob, like you can't do a bob on a mannequin with bat with a poorly stitched hairline.

You can't do a pixie with a poorly stitched hairline.

It's just not possible.

I challenge you on that one.

Okay, so but that also means that your mannequins that are good quality are going up by 100, 150% because terror, they all come from majority of them come from China.

I know that there are moves, efforts to move operations outside of China, but you know, we got to watch how this trade war goes, goes down.

And last but not least, a pretty crazy story in my opinion.

Some of you might agree with this.

I think this is a good thing.

I don't know this is good or bad.

I think it's really interesting that now student loan borrower, borrowers who are in default will get their tax refund and their Social Security checks garnished.

So if you take out a loan for school and then you get out of school and then you can't get a job to pay those loans and pay rent and pay cost of living, then, then you are going to suffer more by not being able to have as much money in your new when you retire.

Like this is insane to me, but this is what's happening.

It says right here, starting on May 5, the government is restarting depart the debt collection in on defaulted student loans.

As part of these efforts, the Department of Education is restarting the process that allows for borrowers who are in default on their student loans to have their Social Security benefits and tax refunds offset to repay the debt.

The debt.

Early this summer, the government will also begin garnishing wages to repay defaulted student loans.

I think this is insane, but this is the current state that we're in.

We are.

I thought this would be an interesting topic to have a conversation with, but it sounds very political because some people really believe that people should pay off the loans and other people are bitter because they paid down their loans.

And now there's talk about, then there was talk about getting rid of the loans and then Some people think it's crazy that people have to pay back their loans and some people think it's crazy.

It's not crazy that you have to pay back the money, but it's crazy that you have to pay interest on it.

Like there are all these heated conversations going on about this topic, so maybe this is one just to ponder.

I just wanted to throw this in there because a lot of our customers are going to be impacted by this.

And if you went to beauty school, buyer beware.

All right, well, that is the news I'd love to hear from you.

At the end of the day, my takeaway from all of this stuff that's happening is lean in to service, focus on mental and physical health.

Those things tend to not cost much money at all.

If anything, we don't have to join a gym to go for a walk.

We don't have to hire a nutritionist or pay for a meal plan to eat healthy.

We have ChatGPT, we have social media to, we have YouTube, we have Google.

There's plenty of time that we have to spend doing research and learning about the things that are important to us and, and that doesn't cost us money.

So then we're not spending frivolously.

We can lean put more cash or more money into an emergency fund and we can weather a storm that may or may not come.

We can be kind to our customers and extend grace to those who have been losing their jobs and try to give them an extra level service and make people feel good.

Because people come in because they want to look good and feel good.

When you're a luxury or high end experience, you're selling more than a haircut.

And I recommend everybody sells more than a haircut.

I recommend you sell an experience, one that those customers are going to turn around and tell other people and you can actually grow during a recession.

And a recession, for those of you who haven't experienced one, looks like this.

People still come to get their hair done, they just don't come as often.

And you can lose 30 to 50% of your income.

And it doesn't take a lot.

It doesn't take them pushing out their appointments that much.

So our focus should be making sure that they're getting more than their hair.

And it should be that we are delivering a service that they want to rave to their friends about.

You know, only investments we're making are things that get intermediate are.

The rest is we're just being smart and being, being safe and you know, trying to find ways to get together in community.

So hopefully I'll see you on July 27th at the Beauty Business Brunch.

Tickets are on sale.

You can go to hairdresserstrong.com and you'll see the tile for Beauty Business Brunch.

It'll take you right over the ticket page.

You can read about it.

It's going to be awesome.

We'll be talking about all this stuff.

All right.

Until then, see ya.